TOPICS OF THE DAY.
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM AND PARLIAMENTARY INCOMPETENCY.
THE dead lock to which, the House of. Commons came this week on the subjeet ofiteform is a symptom of a bad character na- tionally. We were about to say " of the worst character," but there are so many healthy signs inane condition of our country at present, that even the worst indications are modified by the circumstances amid which they appear.. The treatment of the Reform question, however, shows that the representative chamber is not in accord, either with the governing class.or with the sub- ject class,---tteither with the leisurely order whose influence con- trols society, nor with society which allows its affairs thus to be controlled save on exceptional and critical occasions.
We do not share the disposition. which abstract students of
polities have to bring forward.," the sovereignty of the " on. every possible occasion. We. observe that where the greatest possible approach has been made, to any such form of an ffteon- dye comprising ererer06,, the inconvenience:; are very serious; and we are quite content to- accept the system, in our country which leaves the leisurely. classes generally to carry on, by their influence and.dominant convictions, the , wishes of the entire na- tion. On the other hand, as Englishmen, we never can forget that all which is done by the leisurely Edwina and their appointed representatives, is, really done in the name of the people and by the authority, of the people„na signified.. in the deference of the rulers to public opinion or to the suffrages of the enfranchised. Whenever, to adopt a term which has been used invidiously, but which we now employ. in its literal and limited sense, the govern- ing classes have forgotten this origin and countersignatureof their commission, they have drawn upon themselves some con- demnatory mark of national indignation, which has for a time recalled the true nature of ou,r, constitution. The happiest state of things for this country happens when the adniiaistering order conducts affairs in such harmony with the general opinion- and
a aspirationof the Englishpeople, and avowedly in such deference to, public opinion, as to put. off and. snpersede any necessity for national interference. When' the opposite happens, when the administering order forgets the high policyof such a course, it calla for fresh act of the supreme, authority, and, subjects the country to one of. those crises which have been_ disastrous for contemporary. interests, however wholesome for our immortal constitution.
Now, at present the administering, class does not mean ill ; it has. no great ambition to indulge, it is engaging in no conspira- cies; but it is out of harmony with the conviction and feeling of the community. It is divided into such sectional coteries, that it cannot muster a majority of its own ; or, if it, has a majority, the wantaf resolution paralyzes the action of the leading 'men, and the domin.autmajority.remains.at the mercy. of contumacious and perverse minorities. Such has' been .the spectacle presented by the House of Commons far thalast fortnight. Tho apology is, that Lord John Russell's Bill is of. such a. kind that it is neither worth carrying nor- debating,—is too small to call forth any popular support, and, at the same time, too-incon- sistent with the ideas either of the popular reformer, or of the strictly Conservative reformer, to pass unopposed. Amongst the competition of various bills, including Lord John's own of 1854, it‘is.hy no means, the moat imposing,; in. some respects, Mr. Dis- raeli's had.a grander look about it ; and we must avow our belief that, having reference-to the. actual state of public opinion in this country, the measure which-we published last year would, if it had been introduced in the House-of Commons by Lord John Russell, have had.a far.better.chance than the bill which he has this year presented to Parliament.*: In many respects, that measure would have disarmed -objections raised against the pre- sent bill; it did not challenge alitrni by a 6/. franchise in bo- roughs, or a_101. franchise in counties. It did admit other frau- chises in counties, which would' have introduced an intelligent and industrious class of men; and, above all, by an educational franchise in boroughs, it would have opened the door for every man of the artisan class, who can now substantiate the grievance of his exclusion by the intelligence of his remonstrance. The leadbag principles of that-bill may be thus described. The borough franchise would have been extended so as to in- clude every influential class in the community, the artisan order among the rest. It proposed an 81. franchise, an educational franchise, a fundholding-franchise, and: an income and assessed, tax franchise. The freemen might be left as they are at present ; though the reader will see by the special instance of Berwick how much this class- of voters may be enrployed to supersede the voice of the people by the voice of bribery. In. countiea,,the existing franchise of the freeholders would have been maintained, but the 10/. copyhold franchise would have been reduced to 408. The absurdly restrictive leasehold franchise based on .a 60/. lease. for twenty years would have been replaced by a 101. for three years ; and, in lieu of the proposed 101. occu- pancy, we should. have had a 20/. franchise with franohises based upon,fund.-holdiug,taxation, and education, as in boroughs.
Lord John Russell's Bill fails to satisfy any class by the amount of its redistributions ; for even the most Conservative see the-ne- cessity of vigorous handling in this part of the subject. One
• Spectator, June 18, .1859, Supplement: Draft of Sir Eardley Reform Bill. form of extension, for instance, is utterly. omitted in Lord John's smaller measure—the admission of two minor boroughs, which are types of very importantiseetions of the coutiy,t to elect one Mem- ber each. Sir Eardley WiImot's Bill would have given one Mem- ber to many more of the Universities. Many of the larger boroughs which now return one Member would have returned two ; such for example, as Salford, Dudley, Chatham, Cheltenham. The seats for this purpose would have been obtained:by taking away one from the two Members of at least sixty of the small English boroughs. Now there is nothing very complicated in the provisions of such wmeasure. They are, in the strictest sense'of the words, more Con- servative than Lord-John's Bill; they are also far more "reform- ing," far freer in their admission for certain classes who are at present debarred hem their hereditary rights in the British C6n- stitution. We admit all this ; but do we advance it now for the purpose of obstructing the progress-of' Lord John Russell's Bill ? Not at all. We are willing to accept the negative points of that measure, to be silent respecting its omissions, and to treat the larger disfranehisements, in particular, as questions deferred: With regard to the more positive points, where the present bill differs from our model; the difference becomes a very fair subject of consideration in committee; and, for our part, we should be pre- pared to take the result of the discussion in the Committee of the whole House of Commons as the best-which could be obtained in the present state of society, with the present-state of our political machinery. One eautiOn, however, we must hold*• out before the House of Commons enters upon that difficult duty ; for there is one trait of the present representative chamber whioh increases the difficulty. It is the fact that honourable Members seem to approach their task in an easygoing spirit, as if it'were to be performed with the equanimity of a veteran member passing a private bill before dinner, or a young heir-presumptive endorsing a bill payable post obit. Members behave as if they were under governance of no opinien—not even their own. They almost avow, by their superficial and trivial arguments, that they have no materials for an opinion ; they have not taken the pains to collect information. There are very few; indeed, who are prepared to couch their ar- guments in the only form deserving respect—the distinct state- ment of facts. Some have been at the pains to employ persons in the collection of " statistics," seeking by that easy numerical" process to "tot up " the numbers who will be added here or taken away there ; the proportion of voters who have been guilty of bribery, or the number of those who pay parish rates ; as if the true character and spirit of living men and women forming any community could be ascertained by these dry statistical specialities ! As we have said before, statistics have no substantivevalue whatever. They do not supply a particle of information ; they are of as little value as the ink lines which mark the boundaries of a country upon a map, and which tell you nothing respecting the physiology of land or sea, the productiveness of the soil, the salubrity of the air, or any one of the elements that form the materials for human life. You must ascertain those by the actual examination of the country, and statistics only help your mind to a definite idea of proportions between the things that you know independently. So it is with questions, sanitary or political. You must know the nature of health and disease, the kind of suffering entailed upon the living, and upon a succession of generations, before there can be the slightest value in figures showing the mere numerical pro- portions of health and disease. So you must study the con- dition. of the people morally and materially before any such sta- tistics as those which are well known in the House of Commons can be admitted to have the force.
By their speeches we say, honourable Members in the lower House have proclaimed that they are devoid of ideas respecting the actual state of the British people. We much doubt whether there are many Members even in the Lower Chamber who know how the largest portions of English families live,--what sort of houses they inhabit ; what they eat for breakfast, dinner, and supper; what books they read, whatik the tone of their conver- sation, what is their knowledge of this country and of other countries, of history in the past and of polities in the present ; what is the state of the men in regard to their convictions, their capacity for combined action, their physical stamina, their cour- age, will, and consciousness of their own power. All these are most important elements in the state question ; but we believe that there is scarcely a man in either House of Parliament who, from his own knowledge, can speak positively on the point. The Upper House has frankly avowed its utter ignorance on the sub- ject by appointing a select committee purposely to inquire into the very superficies and elements of such a knowledge. " Oinne ignotum pro mirifico" ; • ignorance conjures up hobgoblins out of the most natural objects; and it is not flinch to say that these un- instructed legislators who always speak of the English people by synecdoche, —excluding those whom they are pleased to speak of as." the masses," the " uneducated,"' "the mob," the deluded,— really stand in dread of the classes whom Reform has proposed to enfranchise, because in their own ignorance they believe that, if their countrymen were invested with power, London would ex- hibit scenes like that which Paris displayed at the close of last century. Some evidently apprehend that Lord John's moderate measure is only the preface to a reign of Jack Cade. Now that which calls forth the Jack Cedes is the ignorance or injustice of the ruling class, especially when faults which amount to political crimes are rendered more mischievous and more hateful, by the wanton exhibition of levity and indifference to great duties. A
few more debates like those on the second reading of Lord John Russell's Bill, and the House of Commons would pique the com- mon sense of England to repudiate it as "the Representative Chamber"
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