FOOTNOTES:

Differences between the Departments.

The point to which deconcentration is carried is not the same in all branches of the public service. Mr. Gladstone declared that the Chancellor of the Exchequer could not take as active a part as other ministers in the current business of his department;[186:2]while in the Foreign Office, on the other hand, it has been the tradition that the Secretary of State ought to see almost everything. No doubt this is in part due to the very nature of diplomatic relations, but there can also be no doubt that in the past it has been carried much too far. When Mr. Hammond was under-secretary for foreign affairs he insisted on making the first minute on all papers in the office.[186:3]A change has been made in this respect, and the practice brought more into accord with that which prevails in other departments;[186:4]but the Foreign Secretary is still expected to give his personal attention to a greater mass of detail than other ministers.[186:5]

Effect of the Procedure on the Power of Officials.

Now any subordinate who determines what questions he may decide himself, and what he will refer to his superiors, and who prepares the materials for a final judgment in the cases that he does refer, is certain to exert a great deal of influence. The permanent under-secretary, holding his position, as he does, for an indefinite period, devoting his whole time to the work, and becoming thoroughly familiar with the affairs of his department, can, no doubt, regulate the class of questions that shall be referred to him, and can acquire complete control over the administration. But the minister, who is usually unfamiliar with the department to which he is assigned, who remains at its head a comparatively short time, and whose attention is largely engrossed by the more exciting scenes enacted in the cabinet, in Parliament, and on the platform, must, unless gifted with extraordinary executive capacity, be to a considerable extent in the hands of his permanent subordinates.

Need of Mutual Confidence between Political and Permanent Heads.

The smooth working of a system of this kind evidently depends upon the existence of mutual respect and confidence between the minister and the permanent under-secretary. If the minister, knowing that the under-secretary does not share his own political views, fails to treat him with perfect frankness, or if, after one party has been long in power, the permanent officials have little sympathy with a new ministry from the other party, and do not give it their active and cordial help, then mistakes are certain to be made, the efficiency of the service suffers, and the plans of the government are likely to miscarry. The permanent under-secretary ought to feel, and in fact does feel, a temporary allegiance to his chief, although of a different political party. He gives his advice frankly until the chief has reached a decision, and then he carries that out loyally. Confidential communications—and they are numberless—he treats as sacred even from the next parliamentary chief. If one minister prepares a measure which never sees the light, the permanent under-secretary might refuse to show the documents to the succeeding minister, and the latter wouldrecognise the propriety of such a course. The minister on his part seeks the advice of the under-secretary on all questions that arise, making allowance for bias due to preconceived political or personal conviction. This does not mean that if a government comes into power pledged to a definite policy, such as Home Rule or a preferential tariff, the under-secretary would be consulted about the general principle. In a case of that kind the policy has been settled in Parliament or by a general election, and the advice of the permanent officials would be limited to the details of the measure proposed.

The system has, of course, its limits. There are cases where the known opinions of the under-secretary would make it almost impossible for him to conduct a certain policy effectively. When the Conservatives, for example, came into office in 1895 with a policy of coercion for Ireland, they found as permanent Irish under-secretary Sir Robert Hamilton, who was known to be a strong Home Ruler, and believing that it would be very difficult for them to govern the country through his agency, they promoted him out of the way; such cases must sometimes occur, but they are extremely rare. It is, indeed, astonishing how far the system can be carried; to what an extent an under-secretary can act as the loyal adviser and administrator for chiefs of totally different political opinions.

Actual Relation Depends on Personality.

The actual relations between the minister and the permanent under-secretary depend in any particular case very much upon the personality of the men. Peel and Gladstone, for example, maintained a close supervision and control over the departments under their charge, while John Bright felt that his real field of usefulness was in the House of Commons, and left the affairs of the Board of Trade almost altogether in the hands of the permanent officials. The system naturally works at its best when minister and under-secretary are both strong, good-tempered men, when each is active, but recognises clearly the province of the other. The saying has become almost proverbial that the mostvaluable minister is one who knows nothing about his department when appointed, and like most paradoxes it contains a distorted truth. A good minister must be a good administrator, but he must look to results, and not suppose that he knows as much about the technical side of the work as his permanent subordinate. For, as Bagehot quotes Sir George Cornwall Lewis, "It is not the business of a Cabinet Minister to work his department. His business is to see that it is properly worked."[189:1]If he attempts to go beyond his province, to be dogmatic and to interfere in details, he will cause friction and probably come to grief.

Methods of Controlling a Minister.

The permanent officials have, indeed, several means of controlling a minister who ventures to disregard them. They have been heard to say that a fool, if given rope enough, will hang himself. If he does not care for their advice they need not tender it, and then he is sure to make mistakes for which he alone will be held responsible. If, on the other hand, he tries, with the best intentions, to go too much into detail, nothing is easier than the trick, familiar, probably, to every bureaucracy, of overwhelming him with detail. He wishes to decide questions himself. The papers bearing upon them are brought to him in ever-increasing piles, until he finds himself hopelessly unable to cope with the mass of documents, and virtually surrenders at discretion. Then there are the means of control arising from the audit of accounts and from questions in Parliament. The permanent under-secretary points out to his chief that an expenditure he proposes is likely to be disallowed by the auditor, or that an action he suggests may very well give rise to an embarrassing question in the House of Commons, and to these things a minister is highly sensitive. Questions afford, indeed, a means of mutual control, for the permanent officials are usually far more afraid of the House of Commons than the minister is himself, and tend to be reticent in preparing answers.

The Treasury Bench is not so omniscient as it appearswhen answering questions in the House. After notice of a question has been given, the materials for a reply are prepared, and often the answer itself is drawn up, by some permanent official in the department. Sometimes the minister merely reads the answer as it has been placed in his hands, but more commonly while keeping the substance, he puts it into words of his own that he thinks better suited to the temper of the House. The labour of working up the answers to innumerable questions on every conceivable subject, and of every degree of importance and triviality, is in the aggregate very great, and places a heavy burden upon the permanent officials during the session of Parliament. But no satisfactory method of limiting the privilege has yet been devised, and although abused, it has the effect of keeping the administration up to the mark. The system affords an opportunity for constant public criticism, and while it gives the permanent officials some control over the minister, it is, on the other hand, a most effective means of preventing the growth of a bureaucratic spirit.

Evils where a Minister is Inactive.

If the permanent officials can restrain a minister from interfering overmuch, there is no similar means of preventing him from neglecting his duties. Yet in that case the service suffers. It is apt to become numbed and bureaucratic. Permanent officials tend to follow precedent, and, indeed, the force of precedent furnishes the basis of their power, but the tendency to be too rigid in their rules is the curse of all their tribe. They shrink from innovation, rarely making a new precedent themselves. This is particularly true in the lesser offices, giving rise, at times, to complaint; and the political chief has to insist upon the need of making exceptions in hard cases, without allowing the hard cases themselves to make bad law. The surest remedy for an excess of routine is a parliamentary head who is interested in the department, and with him a permanent under-secretary of large calibre and wide experience in affairs.

Influence of Permanent Officials not Increasing.

Speaking in 1884 about the Reform Bill then pending, Sir Stafford Northcote predicted that an extension of thefranchise would increase the power of the permanent officials;[191:1]and many people think that the prophecy has been fulfilled. But this would seem to be one of the cases where an impression is due not so much to a real change of conditions, as to the fact that a state of things already existing has become recognised. The power of the civil service has undoubtedly grown very much within the last hundred years; owing partly to the fact that the ministers, instead of being primarily administrators, have become legislators, engrossed by the work of Parliament and by general politics; partly to the much shorter periods for which they hold office. During the one hundred and two years from 1721 to 1823 there were nineteen chancellors of the exchequer; of whom five held office for more than ten years apiece, the aggregate length of their services being seventy-eight years. In the eighty-two years from 1823 to 1905, twenty-three men held the office, one of them for thirteen years, another for nine, and no one else for more than about six years. The effect of such a shortening of the minister's tenure of office upon the position of his permanent subordinates is self-evident. But the present conditions of political life have now existed with little change for a generation; and, in the opinion of men well qualified to form a judgment, the power of the permanent officials, while varying from time to time with the personnel of the ministry, has not of late years shown any general tendency to increase.

Self-Effacement of the Civil Servants.

Although the civil servant enjoys a great deal of the substance of power, yet he purports to act only under the directions of his political chief. Sir Stafford Northcote was admonished early in his career by Mr. Gladstone "that references from the Opposition Bench to opinions of the permanent officers of Government, in contradiction to the opinion of the Minister who is responsible in the matterat issue, were contrary to rule and to convenience."[192:1]If this were not so the principle of ministerial responsibility could hardly be maintained. The minister is alone responsible for everything done in his department, and he receives all the credit and all the blame. The civil servant never talks in public about the policy of his department,[192:2]never claims anything done there as his own work; and, on the other hand, the minister ought not to attribute blunders or misconduct to a subordinate unless prepared at the same time to announce his discharge. This rule is not, indeed, always observed in the military services, for within a few years the House of Lords has heard the late Secretary of State for War and the Commander-in-Chief charge each other with the responsibility for the lack of preparation in South Africa;[192:3]and in 1901 the First Lord of the Admiralty in the House of Lords laid the blame for the capsizing of the royal yacht at her launching upon the naval constructor, while praising, at the same time, his skill in designing battleships.[192:4]In the civil services the principle has been, as a rule, very strictly followed; although here, also, in the case of Sir Antony MacDonnell, the under-secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, an exception occurred which caused no small stir at the time.[192:5]Nor is theresponsibility of the minister merely formal and conventional, for the mistakes of the officials in his department go into the great balance of good and evil report, whereby the reputation of the cabinet is made, and its fate at the next election is determined. In short, the permanent official, like the King, can do no wrong. Both are shielded by the responsibility of the minister, and in fact it may happen that a policy adopted, let us say by the Foreign Office, which is popularly attributed to the personal wishes of the King, is in reality the work of some permanent subordinate.

Fifty years ago the public was not aware of the power of the civil servants, and Parliament, regarding them as clerks, paid little attention to them. But now that their importance has come to be understood there is, in the opinion of some of their own members, a danger that they will be made too prominent, that the screen which protects them from the public gaze will be partly drawn aside, and that they willthereby lose their complete irresponsibility, and with it their permanence and their non-political character. Whether such a danger will prove serious is at present only a matter for conjecture.

Honours Conferred upon Civil Servants.

While the permanent official can win no credit for particular acts, a life of exceptional service does not pass unrecognised. Sir Robert Peel, who appreciated their importance, lamented that honours were not conferred upon them more freely.[194:1]Such a complaint could hardly be made to-day, for a number of them are knighted every year, and occasionally a permanent under-secretary, on retiring from office, is even raised to the peerage. In spite of self-effacement, therefore, the career of a permanent official is honourable and attractive. If he is debarred from the excitement and the glory of the political arena, he is spared its hazards, its vexations, and its disappointments. He wields great power, takes a real part in shaping the destinies of the nation, and if capable and fortunate he may end his days in the subdued lustre of the House of Lords.

[174:1]Cf.Gneist, "Self-Government in England," 3 Auf., 196-97.

[174:2]Blackstone, Bk. I., 351.

[174:3]12 Ric. II., c. 10 (4).Cf.32 Hen. VIII., c. 1.

[175:1]Gneist, "Self-Government," 212.

[175:2]Act II., Sc. I. The characters of the play purport to be French, but the manners and customs are, of course, English. Fletcher died in 1625. An earlier, though less definite, reference to the power of the clerk is found in William Lambard's "Eirenarcha or, Of the Office of the Justices of Peace," published in 1581 (p. 468): "Howbeit, I do not thinke, that in our case, this dutie of Estreating is so peculiar to the Clarke of the Peace, but that the Justices of the Peace themselves, ought also to have a common and carefull eye unto it . . . least otherwise, it lye altogither in the power of the Clarke of the Peace, to Save or Slay (as one sayd) the Sparrow that he holdeth closed in his hand."

[177:1]Com. Papers, 1839, XVII., 1, pp. 37-38.

[177:2]P. 235.

[178:1]P. 235.

[178:2]P. 268.

[178:3]P. 279.

[179:1]For the quotations from these memoirs I am indebted to Mr. Evan Randolph, who made, while a student at Harvard College, a careful examination of the subject.

[179:2]"Autobiography," London Ed. (1885), I., 70.

[179:3]Ibid., 130.

[179:4]Ibid., 133.

[179:5]Ibid., 136.

[179:6]Ibid., 233,cf.123. It was during Lord Glenelg's time that Stephen became permanent under-secretary.

[180:1]"Autobiography," II., 38.

[180:2]Marindin, "Letters of Lord Blachford," 227.

[180:3]Ibid., 252.

[180:4]Ibid., 275.

[180:5]Morris, "Memoirs of Higginbottom," 183.

[180:6]II., 505.

[181:1]Parker, "Sir Robert Peel," III., 184.

[181:2]Com. Papers, 1900, VII., 183.

[181:3]In that same year much discussion was provoked by Lord Salisbury's sweeping remark that the British Constitution was not a good fighting machine on account of the power of the Treasury to restrain military expenditure. (Hans., 4 Ser. LXXVIII., 32, 237, 239.) It was pointed out that if the political chiefs of the Army and Navy want to increase their expenditure they cannot be blocked by the Treasury clerks. They can confer with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and if he will not consent, they can appeal to the Prime Minister, and ultimately to the cabinet. Nevertheless it is true that if the political chief does not consider a matter of first-class importance—and many of the most far-reaching matters do not appear so at the time—or does not want to fight about it, the opinion of the Treasury officials may prevail, even to the extent of blocking useful reforms that cost a little money.Moreover, if a matter is fought out between the political chiefs, their opinions may very well be derived from their permanent subordinates. When the subject of Treasury control was investigated by the Committee on Civil Establishments, Sir Reginald (now Lord) Welby was asked, "Is not this question not so much between political ministers as between permanent heads of departments?" He answered "Yes, but the permanent heads of departments to (sic) convince their political chiefs behind whom they fight," and added that the political chiefs commonly support their subordinates. (Com. Papers, 1888, XXVII., 1, Qs. 10721, 10723.)

Moreover, if a matter is fought out between the political chiefs, their opinions may very well be derived from their permanent subordinates. When the subject of Treasury control was investigated by the Committee on Civil Establishments, Sir Reginald (now Lord) Welby was asked, "Is not this question not so much between political ministers as between permanent heads of departments?" He answered "Yes, but the permanent heads of departments to (sic) convince their political chiefs behind whom they fight," and added that the political chiefs commonly support their subordinates. (Com. Papers, 1888, XXVII., 1, Qs. 10721, 10723.)

[182:1]Com. Papers, 1888, XXVII., 1, Q. 20168.

[183:1]Cf.Giffen's Ev., 2d Rep. Com. on Civil Estabs., Com. Papers, 1888, XXVII., 1, Qs. 19131-32, 19139.

[184:1]If there is an assistant under-secretary the paper passes, of course, through his hands; and in case local conditions require to be examined an inspector is sent down to report.

[184:2]It has already been observed that in some departments the parliamentary under-secretary is the administrative head for some matters.

[184:3]Todd, with his unfailing industry, searched the Blue Books for information on this subject. (Parl. Govt. in England, 2 Ed. II., 542, 614, 628-31, 645-46, 671, 708.) Since he wrote, a great deal of evidence on the procedure in the several departments has been collected by the Com. on Civil Estabs. (2d Rep., Com. Papers, 1888, XXVII., 1, Qs. 10992-11001, 11849-51, 12034-35, 12072-78, 12360-64, 12887-91, 19434, 19442-43).

[185:1]Com. Papers, 1888, XXVII., 1, Qs. 12072-78.

[185:2]In the Home Office, for example, the minuting for replies to papers was formerly done by the permanent under-secretary alone. Later the senior clerks were allowed to make minutes, and now the process begins with the junior clerks. (Com. Papers, 1888, XXVII., 1, Qs. 10992-11001.) The same tendency has been at work in the Foreign Office, as will be explained later.

[186:1]Rep. on clerical staff of Local Gov. Board, Com. Papers, 1898, XL., 429, p. 12.

[186:2]He said "The relation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the Treasury is somewhat anomalous; it does not correspond at all with that of a Secretary of State to his department, because of course he lies a good deal outside the Treasury, and a good deal of the current business never comes before him at all." (3d Rep. Com. on Pub. Accounts, Com. Papers, 1862, XI., 467, Q. 1640.)

[186:3]Cf.Mr. Hammond's memorandum entitled "The Adventures of a Paper in the Foreign Office," Rep. of Sel. Com. on Trade, Com. Papers, 1864, VII., 279, Q. 1384; reprinted in 1st Rep. of Com. on Dip. and Cons. Services, Com. Papers, 1871, VII., 197, Qs. 1145-46.

[186:4]Com. Papers, 1871, VII., 197, Qs. 1145-46. Hans. 3 Ser. CCXXXII., 1058.

[186:5]4th Rep. Com. on Civil Estabs., Com. Papers, 1890, XXVII., 1, Ev. of Mr. Bryce, Qs. 27927-31, Sir Charles Dilke, Q. 29252.The position of the Secretary of State for War, and the First Lord of the Admiralty, although in most ways not unlike that of the other ministers, is peculiar in the fact that they are the lay heads of great professions. Their relation to the military officers detailed for service in the principal administrative posts in their departments has already been discussed inChap. IV.

[186:5]4th Rep. Com. on Civil Estabs., Com. Papers, 1890, XXVII., 1, Ev. of Mr. Bryce, Qs. 27927-31, Sir Charles Dilke, Q. 29252.

The position of the Secretary of State for War, and the First Lord of the Admiralty, although in most ways not unlike that of the other ministers, is peculiar in the fact that they are the lay heads of great professions. Their relation to the military officers detailed for service in the principal administrative posts in their departments has already been discussed inChap. IV.

[189:1]"The English Constitution," 1 Ed., 240.

[191:1]"After that there will come a bureaucratic despotism; that is to say, the permanent officials will take the management of affairs into their hands, and Parliament will have little to do." Andrew Lang, "Life, Letters, and Diaries of Sir Stafford Northcote," 2 Ed., II., 219.

[192:1]Lang, "Life, Letters, and Diaries of Sir Stafford Northcote," I., 160.

[192:2]After resigning his post in the Education Department in 1903, Sir George Kekewich condemned publicly the Education Bill which had been passed while he was in office, but it may safely be said that even this is not regarded as the best form.

[192:3]Hans. 4 Ser. XC., 327et seq., XCI., 6et seq.

[192:4]Ibid., XCVI., 969.

[192:5]Sir Antony MacDonnell, who had distinguished himself greatly as an Indian administrator, and had just been given a place on the Council of India, was appointed by Mr. Wyndham under-secretary for Ireland in September, 1902, in spite of the fact that he was an Irishman, a Roman Catholic and a Liberal in politics. In the summer of 1904, believing that he had the approval of Mr. Wyndham, the Chief Secretary, in so doing, he assisted Lord Dunraven to formulate the policy of devolution in Ireland. But Mr. Wyndham hastened to make public his disapproval of that policy as soon as the plan appeared in the press. When Parliament met in February, 1905, Mr. Wyndham, in reply to questions of the Irish Unionists, stated these facts, adding that Sir Antony MacDonnell had been censured by the cabinet, which was, however, thoroughly satisfied that his conduct was not open to the imputation of disloyalty. (Hans. 4 Ser. CXLI., 324-26.) The occurrence gave rise to a good deal of hot discussion in both Houses of Parliament in the latter half of February, in the course of which Mr. Wyndham said that he could not invite such a man as Sir Antony MacDonnell to come and help him as a clerical assistant, that he was invited rather as a colleague than as a mere under-secretary. (Hans. 4 Ser. CXLI., 650, and see Lord Lansdowne's remarks,Ibid., 461.) The letters that passed between Mr. Wyndham and Sir Antony MacDonnell at the time of his appointment were then produced, and they contain a stipulation couched in language that can fairly be interpreted as implying either a position of exceptional importance, or merely such influence as an under-secretary possessing the full confidence of his chief might enjoy. (Hans. 4 Ser. CXLI., 979-81.) The debate led to the resignation of Mr. Wyndham; and his successor, Mr. Long, as well as Mr. Balfour, insisted that no agreement made with Sir Antony gave him a position different from that of other under-secretaries in the civil service. (Hans. 4 Ser. CXLI., 995; CXLII., 1225-26; CXLIV., 647-48, 1278-79). An aftermath of the trouble came in the autumn of 1906 when Mr. Long challenged Sir Antony MacDonnell to publish any letters bearing upon the events of 1904-1905, but these the Conservative government, when in power, had declined to produce in Parliament. (TheTimes, Aug. 30, 31, Sept. 1, 4, 1906.) Correspondence of this nature cannot, of course, be published, at the good pleasure of the possessor. The whole episode illustrates clearly the difficulties that arise when a parliamentary chief fails to assume complete responsibility for everything that happens in his department. It shows also that the relations between the political chief and his permanent subordinate are fixed by the nature of the parliamentary system, and cannot be effectively changed in special cases.

[194:1]Parker, "Sir Robert Peel," II., 35-36.

Electors and Constituencies Offer Distinct Problems.

The composition of any representative body involves two separate things; the electors and the constituencies. During the first part of the nineteenth century public attention outside of England was mainly concentrated upon the electors, or in other words upon the extension of the franchise. But now that something like universal suffrage has been introduced into most of the countries which have a popular element in their government, the franchise is little discussed, and much more is said about the constituencies, that is, the method of combining the voters into groups. The change is largely due to discontent with some of the results of democracy, a feeling which finds vent in widespread criticism of representative institutions.[195:1]

It was formerly assumed that the interests of the masses of the people were fundamentally identical; and hence the mode in which the electors were grouped was comparatively unimportant, the main question being the enlargement of the basis of representation. We have now learned that the formation of the constituencies offers a distinct problem with grave practical effects, and popular government not having brought the millennium that was foretold, men seek a remedy in different methods of combining the voters. We constantly see discussions of this subject. We hear of the relative advantage ofscrutin d'arrondissementandscrutin de liste; that is, single electoral districts or large areas choosing a number of representatives apiece. We hearabout the grouping of voters on the basis of their natural economic relations into urban and rural constituencies; or on the basis of wealth, as in the three-class system of Prussia. We hear suggestions of possible grouping on the basis of occupations;[196:1]and a vast amount of literature has been published to prove the advantage of a grouping on the basis of opinions, by some form of proportional representation.

How Treated in England.

In England the two questions of the electors and the constituencies, although usually considered, and made the subject of legislation, at the same time, have always been kept distinct. Each of the great series of measures of parliamentary reform has touched both subjects, but in unequal degree; and, in fact, it was really the state of the constituencies that forced both problems upon public attention.

The Reform Act of 1832 brought in a general franchise for boroughs in place of the multifarious, and on the whole highly exclusive, privileges which had existed before. It also changed, though in a less radical way, the franchise in the counties. But as a political measure its greatest importance lay in its effect upon the constituencies by the redistribution of seats. It took from small boroughs in various stages of decay and rottenness one hundred and forty-three seats, and gave them to the counties, and to new large towns hitherto unrepresented. The Act of 1867, on the other hand, while transferring seats to some extent, was mainly a measure for extending greatly the borough franchise. In 1884 and 1885 both subjects were dealt with radically. By the Act of 1884 the franchise for counties was much enlarged; and by that of 1885 the distribution of seats was reorganised upon a basis closely akin to equal electoral districts.

The Constituencies.

The constituencies for the English Parliament are of three kinds; counties, boroughs and universities. The last are quite different from the others in nature and franchise, and a word may be said about them here.

Universities.

Oxford and Cambridge were given two seats apiece by James I. The University of Dublin, which had already one seat, obtained another by the Reform Act of 1832; and, finally, the Act of 1868 gave one member to London University, one to Glasgow and Aberdeen combined, and another to Edinburgh and St. Andrews. The franchise for the universities belongs in general to the registered graduates.[197:1]

The Reform Act of 1832.

Until 1832 each county, and each borough that had the privilege of being represented, elected, as a rule, two members of Parliament. This, however, was not true of the Scotch boroughs, which were, with few exceptions, grouped into districts returning a single member apiece; a system that has been maintained to the present day. Some of the English boroughs had been given the right of electing members by the Tudors and the early Stuarts, not because they were places of importance, but, on the contrary, because they were not populous, and their members could be easily controlled by the Crown—the electoral rights being commonly vested in the governing council, which was a close corporation. Other boroughs that had once been places of consequence had, in the course of time, fallen into decay. So that by the beginning of the nineteenth century many members of the House represented no substantial communities, and were really appointed either by small self-perpetuating bodies, or by patrons, who, owning the land, controlled the votes of the few electors in the constituency. This condition of things was made scandalous by the open practice of selling elections to Parliament for cash; and the demand for reform, which had been checked by the long struggle with France, began again after the peace, culminating finally in the Reform Act of 1832.[197:2]The object of this measure was to remove a manifest abuse, rather thanto reorganise the representation of the country on a new basis, and it applied to the conditions a somewhat rough and inexact remedy. The boroughs with less than two thousand population by the census of 1821 were disfranchised altogether, those with more than two thousand and less than four thousand lost one member, and the seats thus obtained were divided about equally between the counties and the new large towns that had hitherto been unrepresented.[198:1]But the constituencies still remained very uneven in population—and, indeed, the framers of the act had no desire for equal electoral districts.

The Reform Act of 1867.

The same process was continued by the Act of 1867, which again took members from little towns and gave them to larger ones and to the counties. While there was no general attempt to make the number of representatives proportional to the size of a constituency, a few of the largest provincial towns were given three members; and in that connection an interesting experiment was tried. With the object of providing for minority representation, the electors in the boroughs returning three members—the so-called three-cornered constituencies—were allowed to vote for only two candidates apiece. This resulted in diminishing the real representation of the borough, as compared with the rest of the country. If Manchester, for example, was Liberal, she would probably be represented by two Liberals and one Conservative. But in a party division the Conservative would neutralise one of the Liberals, so that Manchester would count for only one vote, and would, therefore, have only half as much weight as a much smaller borough with two members both belonging to the same party. The experiment gave so little satisfaction that it was afterward abandoned; and it is chiefly interesting to-day because the effort to organise a large party majority so as to compass the election of all three members gave rise to the Birmingham Caucus, whose birth and whose progeny will be described in a subsequent chapter. Except for thefew three-member constituencies, and a much larger number of boroughs having only a single seat, the constituencies still returned two members apiece; and this continued to be the rule until the third and last of the great measures of parliamentary reform.

The Reform Act of 1885.

The Redistribution Act of 1885, although, like all English measures of reform, to some extent a compromise between the old ideas and the new, rested upon the principle of equal electoral districts each returning a single member. The proportion of one seat for every 54,000 people was roughly taken as the basis of representation; and in order to adapt the principle to the existing system with the least possible change, boroughs with less than 15,000 inhabitants were disfranchised altogether, and became, for electoral purposes, simply a part of the county in which they were situated. Boroughs with more than 15,000 and less than 50,000 people were allowed to retain, or if hitherto unrepresented were given, one member; those with more than 50,000 and less than 165,000, two members; those above 165,000 three members, with an additional member for every 50,000 people more. The same general principle was followed in the counties.[199:1]

The boroughs that had hitherto elected two members, and were entitled to the same number under the new scheme, remained single constituencies for the election of those two members. Of these boroughs there are twenty-three,[199:2]which, with the City of London, and the three universities (Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin), makes in all twenty-seven cases where two members are elected together. All the other constituencies are single-member districts, a result which was brought about by a partition of the counties, of boroughs with more than two members, and of the new boroughs with only two members, into separate electoral divisions, each with its own distinctive name.

It may be interesting to note that the Reforms of 1832 and 1867 did not change the total number of members of the House, but merely redistributed the existing 658 seats. By the disfranchisement, after 1867, for corrupt practices, of four boroughs returning six members, the number was reduced to 652; and the Reform Act of 1885 increased it to 670, where it has since remained.

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