Chapter 13

“At once all law, all settlement control,And mend the parts by ruin of the whole.The tampering world is subject to this curse,To physic their disease into a worse.”29

What shall we gain by it? I have not, I think, quibbled with the question. I have striven to do what the Government have evaded doing—to extract great principles out of this medley, for medley it is, composed partly out of veneration for numbers and partlyout of a sort of traditional veneration for old boroughs, which are to be preserved after what is beneficial in them has been taken from them. Then we have to consider the proposed county franchise, founded, as it has been said, upon utter ignorance. It is quite evident that this Bill has been framed without information, because the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as is well known, has told us that the only copy he had—I may be right; at any rate I cannot be wrong until I have stated it somehow—the Chancellor of the Exchequer told us that the only copy he had of those statistics was the one which he was obliged to lay on the table of the House. If I am wrong, let the Right Honorable Gentleman contradict me.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer: I spoke of the last absolutely finished copy. The substance of those statistics, as far as regarded the general bases of the measure, had been in our hands for weeks before that time, but was not in a state to be placed on the table of the House until all the columns had been filled in.

Mr. Lowe: Well, sir, that finished document is what I call a copy. It may be that the Bill was originally drawn for £6 and £12, andthat at the last moment £7 and £14 were substituted, and that it was regarded as a matter of little consequence what the exact figures were. As to the element of time, I suppose, however, I must not say anything, or the Right Honorable Gentleman will be angry with me. The twelve nights that he gave us for the Franchise Bill are pretty well gone, and we have now got what he never contemplated we should have, a Redistribution Bill as well. I suppose I had better say nothing about the support the Government will have, or I had better veil it in a dead language and say,Idem trecenti Juravimus.30I would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how he can expect to get the Bill through the Committee under those circumstances, bearing in mind that most of the newspapers that lay claim to intelligence and write for educated persons, having begun with rather vague notions of liberality, have written themselves fairly out of them, and that educated opinion is generally adverse to this measure. These, sir, are the prospects we have before us. We have a measure of the most ill-considered and inadequate nature, which cannot be taken as it is, and which, as I understand it, is based on principles so absolutelysubversive and destructive—the grouping, for instance—that if we were ever so anxious to aid the Government we could not accept it. Well then, sir, what objection can there be to the advice given to the Government by my honorable friend, the Member for Dumfries,—no hostile adviser,—to put off the question for another year, and give the educated opinion of the country time to decide on this matter? What are the objections to such a course? There are only two that I know of. One is, that the honorable gentlemen are anxious for a settlement. But are there materials for a settlement in the Bill before us? How, for instance, can you settle the grouping? If you retain the principle on which the Government act, that of grouping those boroughs that have already members, you may do a little better than they have done, because they seem to have gone gratuitously wrong; but you cannot make an effective measure of it, and one that would stand. I am convinced that it would generate far more inequality than it seeks to remove. Then, the giving the constituencies three members is a principle of the greatest gravity and weight, not only for its actual results, but because it really concedes theprinciple of electoral districts. That, surely, is a matter not to be lightly disposed of; nor do I see how it can be compromised, because if the Government gives it up, it must select some other apportionment, which can only be done by creating other electoral districts. Then, as regards the franchise: no doubt that we could get through, because it would only be dealing with a figure, and I dare say there are many honorable gentlemen whose opinions are entitled to great weight who would like a compromise on the franchise. But then you have to consider this, that a compromise on the franchise is a capitulation. Take what I said of the opinions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the honorable Member for Birmingham, and the Attorney-General, and it is just as true of £8 as of £7, and of £9 as of £8. If you once give up the notion of standing on the existing settlement, so far as the mere money qualification for the franchise is concerned, whatever other qualifications you may add to it, you give up the whole principle. As the Attorney-General himself sees, you must go down to household suffrage at last—whether any farther is a matter on which men may differ, though, for my part, I think you would have to gofarther. I must say, therefore, that I can see no materials for a compromise in the borough franchise part of this Bill, and I come therefore to the conclusion that, desirable as it would be, weary as we all are of the subject, and anxious as we all are to get rid of it, there is no place for a compromise. The divergence is too wide; the principles are too weighty; the time is too short; the information is too defective; the subject is too ill-considered. Well, then the other objection to a postponement is that, as my Right Honorable friend, the Secretary for the Colonies, told us, the honor of the Government would not permit them to take that course. Now, I think we have heard too much about the honor of the Government. The honor of the Government obliged them to bring in a Reform Bill in 1860.31It was withdrawn under circumstances which I need not allude to, and as soon as it was withdrawn the honor of the Government went to sleep. It slept for five years. Session after session it never so much as winked. As long as Lord Palmerston lived honor slept soundly; but when Lord Palmerston died, and Lord Russell succeeded by seniority to his place, the “Sleeping Beauty” woke up. As long as theGovernment was kept together by having no Reform Bill, honor did not ask for a Reform Bill; but when, owing to the peculiar predilections of Lord Russell, the Government was best kept together by having a Reform Bill, honor became querulous and anxious for a Reform Bill. But that, Sir, is a very peculiar kind of honor. It puts me in mind of Hotspur’s description:

“By Heaven, methinks it were an easy leap,To pluck bright honor from the pale-fac’d moon,Or dive into the bottom of the deep,Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,And pluck up drowned honor by the locks;So he that doth redeem her thence might wear,Without corrival all her dignities.”32

That is, as long as honor gives nothing, she is allowed to sleep, and nobody cares about her, but when it is a question of wearing “without corrival all her dignities,” honor becomes a more important and exacting personage, and all considerations of policy and expediency have to be sacrificed to her imperious demands. But then there is another difficulty. The Government have told us that they are bound in this matter. Now, “bound” means contracted, and I want to know withwhom they contracted. Was it with the last House of Commons? But the plaintiff is dead, and has left no executor. Was it with the people at large? Well, wait till the people demand the fulfilment of the contract. But it was with neither the one or the other, because the Under-Secretary for the Colonies let the cat out of the bag. He said that he himself called upon Earl Russell to redeem their pledge. I suppose he is Attorney-General for the people of England. He called upon the Government to redeem their pledge. Now, one often hears of people in insolvent circumstances, who want an excuse to become bankrupt, getting a friendly creditor to sue them. And this demand of the honorable gentleman has something of the same appearance. But there has been a little more honor in the case. The Government raised the banner in this House, and said they were determined that we should pass the Franchise Bill, without having seen the Redistribution Bill. Well, they carried their point, but carried it by that sort of majority that though they gained the victory they scarcely got the honor of the operation, and if there was any doubt about that I think there was no great accession ofhonor gained last Monday in the division, when the House really by their vote took the management of the Committee out of the hands of the Executive. All these things do not matter much to ordinary mortals, but to people of a Castilian turn of mind they are very serious. Sir, I have come to the conclusion that there must be two kinds of honor, and the only consolation I can administer to the Government is in the words of Hudibras:

“If he that’s in the battle slainBe on the bed of honor lain,Then he that’s beaten may be saidTo lie on honor’s truckle bed.”33

Well, sir, as it seems to be the fashion to give the Government advice, I will offer them a piece of advice, and I will give them Falstaff’s opinion of honor:

“What is honor?... a trim reckoning.... I’ll none of it. Honor is a mere scutcheon: and so ends my catechism.”34

Sir, I am firmly convinced—and I wish, if possible, to attract the serious attention of the House for a few moments—that it is not the wish of this country to do that which this Billseeks to do. There is no doubt the main object of this Bill is to render it impossible for any other Government than a Liberal one to exist in this country for the future. I do not say that this object would appear an illegitimate one in the eyes of heated partisans and in moments of conflict, for we are all of us naturally impatient of opposition and contradiction, and I dare say such an idea has occurred to many Governments before the present and to many Parliaments before this; but I do say that it is a shortsighted and foolish idea, because if we could succeed in utterly obliterating and annihilating the power of the honorable gentlemen opposite all we should reap as the result of our success would be the annihilation of ourselves. The history of this country—the glorious and happy history of this country—has been a conflict between two aristocratic parties, and if ever one should be destroyed the other would be left face to face with a party not aristocratic, but purely democratic. The honorable Member for Birmingham said with great truth the other day that if the purely aristocratic and the purely democratic elements should come into conflict the victory would, in all probability, be on the side of democracy.The annihilation of one of the aristocratic parties—and I know it is in the minds of many, though, of course, it is not openly avowed—would be a folly like that of a bird which, feeling the resistance the air offers to its flight, imagines how well it would fly if there was no air at all, forgetting that the very air which resists it also supports it, and ministers to it the breath of life, and that if it got quit of that air it would immediately perish. So it is with political parties; they not only oppose, they support, strengthen, and invigorate each other, and I shall never, therefore, be a party to any measure, come from whichever side of the House it may, which seeks so to impair and destroy the balance of parties existing in this country that whichever party were in office should be free from the check of a vigorous opposition, directed by men of the same stamp and position as those to whom they were opposed. I do not believe that is an object of this Bill which the people of this country will approve, nor do I believe that they wish materially to diminish the influence of the honorable gentlemen opposite. There are plenty of gentlemen who do wish it, but I do not believe it is the wish of the country, and therefore Ibelieve they would have looked with much greater satisfaction on the principle of grouping if it had not been so studiously confined to represented boroughs, and if, instead of first swamping the counties by a low franchise, and then offering the illusory boon of three members, it had relieved the county constituencies of considerable portions of the great towns by an efficient Boundaries Bill, and had erected some of the towns which now almost engross the county representation into distinct constituencies. And while passing by that point, let me say that the provisions with regard to boundaries appear to me to be one of the most delusive parts of the whole Bill, because the effect of them is that no suburbs not now included in the municipal district can be included in the Parliamentary district, unless those who live in these suburbs are content to saddle themselves with municipal taxation. I do not believe the country wishes to see the door to talent shut more closely than it is, or this House become an assembly of millionaires. I do not believe the country would look with satisfaction on the difference of tone within the House which must be produced if the elements of which it is the result are altered. Nor do Ibelieve that it will look with satisfaction on that inevitable change of the Constitution which must occur if these projects are carried into execution—a change breaking the close connection between the executive Government and the House of Commons. I believe sincerely that this House is anxious to put down corruption, and I will say again at any risk of obloquy that it is not the way to put down corruption to thrust the franchise into poorer hands. If we are really desirous of achieving this result there is but one way that I know of, and that is by taking care that you trust the franchise only to those persons whose positions in life give security that they are above the grosser forms of corruption. And if you do prefer to have a lower constituency, you must look the thing in the face—you will be deliberately perpetuating corruption for the sake of what you consider the greater good of making the constituencies larger. These are things which I do not believe the people of this country wish to have. And, therefore, I believe that you will be acting in accordance with sound wisdom and enlightened public opinion of the country by deferring this measure another year. I press most earnestly for delay. The matter isof inexpressible importance; any error is absolutely irretrievable; it is the last thing in the world which ought to be dealt with rashly or incautiously. We are dealing not merely with administration, not merely with a party; no, not even with the Constitution of the kingdom. To our hands at this moment is intrusted the noble and sacred future of free and self-determined government all over the world. We are about to surrender certain good for more than doubtful change; we are about to barter maxims and traditions that have never failed for theories and doctrines that never have succeeded. Democracy you might have at any time. Night and day the gate is open that leads to that bare and level plain, where every ant’s-nest is a mountain and every thistle a forest tree. But a government such as England has, a government the work of no human hand, but which has grown up, the imperceptible aggregation of centuries—this is a thing which we only can enjoy; which we cannot impart to others; and which, once lost, we cannot recover for ourselves. Because you have contrived to be at once dilatory and hasty heretofore, that is no reason for pressing forward rashly and improvidently now. We arenot agreed upon details, we have not come to any accord upon principles. To precipitate a decision in the case of a single human life would be cruel. It is more than cruel—it is parricide in the case of the Constitution, which is the life and soul of this great nation. If it is to perish, as all human things must perish, give it at any rate time to gather its robe about it, and to fall with decency and deliberation.

“To-morrow!Oh, that’s sudden! spare it! spare it!It ought not so to die.”35

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