TOPICS OF THE DAY.
MINISTERS ON THE COUNTY FRANCHISE.
TN spite of Lord Hartington's warning against pressing on measures before the difficulties which they involve have been fully encountered, we fancy we may assume, not only from the apologetic tone of his speech of last Saturday, but from the confident manner in which both Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Trevelyan pushed aside last Tuesday the objection to extending the representation of Ireland, that at least no hints have been given from the highest quarters which would stop the mouths of those who prefer settling the county franchise first and the question of redistribution of electoral power after- wards, and who insist that Ireland shall be treated on exactly the same principles as Great Britain in reference to the question of representation. The speech of Mr. Trevelyan at Kelso was indeed a speech of great moment, coming as it did from the Minister who is actually the mouthpiece of the Irish Government in the House of Commons. It is simply impos- sible, we think, that such a speech could have been made, if there had been the least reluctance on the part of the Prime Minister to permit the extension of the Reform Bill, whatever it be, to Ireland. "The very worst recipe," says Mr. Trevelyan, with convincing force as well as complete frankness, " for keeping Ireland at peace is to doctor its representation in a manner which everybody who gains or loses by it knows to be grossly unjust." And, referring to Sir Stafford Northcote's proposal to redistribute representa- tive power in Ireland not with reference to population, but with reference to the existing electorates, he says, " Such a scheme of redistribution would, in my opinion, immensely aggravate the difficulties of Ireland." That is virtually a declaration by the Minister who best knows Lord Spencer's mind, and who vindicates Lord Spencer's Government of Ireland in the House of Commons, that any attempt to treat Ireland in the new Reform Bill on principles which we decline to apply to England, will involve those serious dangers to which Lord Hartington himself alluded as probably too great to en- counter, even at the very moment when he was insisting on the aversion which many Englishmen would feel for any step which strengthened the party of Irreconcileables in the House of Commons. Mr. Chamberlain, at Wolverhampton, took up a position quite as strong as Mr. Trevelyan at Kelso, though, of course, the President of the Board of Trade, Cabinet Minister though he be, hardly speaks on a question of this kind with the authority of the Irish Secretary. "There are some people," he says, "who are very indignant whenever any one in authority admits that the Irish people have still some causes for dissatisfaction. I will put the state of the case before you, and I will appeal to you, whether, patient as you are, enduring as you are, you would tolerate, without murmuring, such a sham, such a fraud, such a transparent imposture, as the present Irish Parliamentary system? In Great Britain, that is, in England and Scotland, one person in ten of the population has a vote, and we think the number too few. But in Ireland, only one person in twenty-five is on the Register. In England and Scotland, of the adult males, three out of eight are electors ; in Ireland, it is only one in six. The political condition of Ireland at the present moment is not so favourable in this respect as the political condition of England and Scotland was before the last Reform Bill. Sixteen years have passed since then, and we have been complaining ever since. We have said that that settlement was altogether in- adequate and insufficient ; yet our Irish fellow-subjects have not even at this moment attained to the point which sixteen years ago we thought to be altogether insufficient. I do not believe that, if this inequality had existed in either England or Scotland, it would have been tolerated so long. To perpetu- ate it now would be to justify disaffection in Ireland, and to put into the mouths of the leaders of the National party the strongest argument they would have for separation, because it would show the impossibility of obtaining justice from the British Parliament. It would be to stimulate and to give fresh vigour to the agitation which it is our interest to allay and to put an end to." We do not for a moment suppose that by refusing to give the leaders of the Home-rule party an additional excuse for agitation, we shall " allay " or "put an end to" their bitter disaffection. We do not doubt that the extension of household franchise to Ireland must result in a very large immediate accession to the strength of the party now called Irreconcileable. But whether it will be nearly so dangerous for purposes of mischief when it is strong—strong for every purpose except that of separation—as it is now that it is weak, is a very different question. In our belief, adequate strength —explicit strength, as distinguished from implicit or merely latent strength—always makes a party more, instead of less reasonable ; more willing to face conspicuous facts, and to compromise what it cannot conquer. The mere fact of having all its strength, and also all its points of weakness, fully dis- played, fully evident to all the world, tends to prevent that half-mystical obstinacy which is founded on a belief that there. is far greater force beneath the surface than is visible on the- surface. If we are to reckon with the Irish people, as sooner or later we must, let us, in the name of common-sense, know exactly what the Irish people mean, what they really wish,. what they would get if they could, and on what conditions. they would be likely to yield to plainly superior force whab they cannot expect the rest of the kingdom to which they belong ever to yield to them. This seems to us to be states- manship of the most obvious kind. And Mr. Chamberlain's warning that the Crimes Act expires in the course of 1885. adds force to these considerations. Let us face the problem, and have our reckoning with Ireland while we have full poweD to keep down agrarian crime. The expiration of the Crimes- Act may then find Ireland in a more reasonable mood, and as. disposed to resent any renewal of those fearful outrages which made life in Ireland hardly worth living to either landlord or peasant, as Great Britain herself would be. But till we have- really brought the people of Great Britain and the people of Ireland face to face in Parliament, we have not even got to the threshold of the most difficult problem of our day.
Another question of great interest is advanced a step by Mr. Trevelyan's most opportune and weighty speech at Kelso,. —the question of how to deal with the non-residential county qualifications. He speaks out with singular force the hearty desire, as we take it, of the whole Liberal party,—ando his words mean this, abolish them altogether. "I cannot speak," he says, "for the intentions of the Government,. but as one of the thousand interpreters of the Liberal' party, I do not hesitate to say that if there is one- thing the party has made up its mind about, it is this, —that people who live outside a county ought not to have votes for that county, and that people who live in a county must and shall have votes for that county, or we will know the reason why." That is a contribution to the solution, of one of Lord Hartington's difficulties which we had ourselves advocated as the only right one, and from, Mr. Trevelyan, who has for so many years back been the almost official advocate of household suffrage in the counties, it comes with peculiar authority and force. Of course he does not absolutely determine the question as to' what we are to do with the freeholders. A resident free- holder might still have a vote in right of his freehold, though as he would certainly have it in right of his household resid- ence, we do not see any possible advantage in permitting him to claim for the house in which he does not reside, rather than for the house in which he does. But on the whole, that view of Mr. Trevelyan's seems to us to tend in the direction:, of the obvious and simple solution that resident inhabitants of the county shall have votes in virtue of the households of which they are the head, and not in virtue of anything else at; all. Cannot even those Liberals who feel a sort of pious grati- tude towards the 40s. freehold, see that, excellent service as it has rendered, its day is gone by so soon as we adopt the simpler rule that the head of the household, whether in a county or in a Parliamentary borough, shall always vote OD behalf of the household of which he is the head
Previous page
