Kitabı oku: «The Political History of England – Vol XI», sayfa 23

PROVISIONS OF THE FIRST BILL.

The reform bill of the whig ministry, drawn on broad and simple lines, struck at the root of this system. Its twofold basis was a liberal extension of the suffrage with a very large redistribution of seats. The elective franchise in counties, hitherto confined to freeholders, was to be conferred on £10 copyholders and £50 leaseholders; the borough franchise was to exclude "scot and lot" voters, "potwallopers" and most other survivals of antiquated electorates, but to include ratepaying £10 householders. The qualification for this franchise had originally been fixed at £20, and the king deprecated any reduction, but the omission of the ballot reconciled him and other timid reformers to an immense increase in the lower class of borough voters. Sixty boroughs of less than 2,000 inhabitants, returning 119 members, were to be disfranchised altogether; forty-seven others, with less than 4,000 inhabitants, were to be deprived of one member, and Weymouth was to lose two out of the four members which it returned in combination with the borough of Melcombe Regis. Fifty-five new seats were allotted to the English counties, forty-two to the great unrepresented towns, five to Scotland, three to Ireland, and one to Wales. Altogether the numerical strength of the house of commons was to be reduced by sixty-two, and this entirely at the expense of England. Both the county and borough franchises in Scotland were to be assimilated generally to those established for England, and the £10 borough franchise was extended to Ireland. The bill contained many other provisions designed to amend the practice of registration, the voting power of non-resident electors, and the cumbrously expensive machinery of elections. It is important to notice that it also limited the duration of each parliament to five years – a concession to radicalism afterwards abandoned and never since adopted.

On February 3 parliament met after the adjournment, and Grey stated that a measure of reform had been framed, but the nature of it was not disclosed to the house of commons until March 1, and during the interval the secret was kept with great fidelity. The task of explaining it was entrusted to Russell, whose thorough mastery of its letter and spirit fully justified the choice, partly suggested by his aristocratic connexions and historical name. His speech was remarkable for clearness and cogency rather than for rhetorical brilliancy, and he was careful to rest his case on constitutional equity and political expediency of the highest order rather than on vague and abstract principles of popular rights. The debate on the motion for leave to bring in the bill lasted seven nights, and was vigorously sustained on both sides. The drastic and sweeping character of the measure took the whole house by surprise, while its authors justly claimed some credit for moderation in rejecting the radical demands of universal suffrage, vote by ballot, and triennial, if not annual, parliaments. Not only inside but outside the walls of St. Stephen's the statement of the government had been awaited with the utmost impatience, and it was universally felt that an issue had now been raised which hardly admitted of compromise. The king himself, though much engrossed by minor questions affecting the civil list and the pension list, heartily congratulated Grey on the favourable reception and prospects of the measure, which he regarded as a safeguard against more democratic schemes. His great fear was of a collision between the two houses, and the sequel proved that it was not unfounded. For the present, however, all promised well. Peel denounced the bill with less than his usual caution, but declined to give battle upon it, and it passed the first reading on March 9 without a division. Indeed, the chief danger to the stability of the government arose from its defeat on the timber duties. This and other vexatious rebuffs so irritated Grey that he actually contemplated a dissolution, lest the reform bill itself should meet with a like fate. But the king would not hear of it, and the cabinet wisely decided to follow the example of Pitt and ignore an adverse division on a merely financial proposal, however significant of parliamentary feeling.

SECOND READING OF THE FIRST BILL.

Between the 9th and the 21st, the date fixed for the second reading, popular excitement rose to a formidable height. Monster meetings were held in the great centres of population, and the political unions put forth all their strength. Nevertheless, the efforts of the "borough-mongers" were all but successful, and after only two nights debate the bill passed its second reading by a bare majority of one, 302 voting for it, and 301 against it. After this demonstration of strength on the part of its opponents, no one could expect that it would survive the ordeal of discussion in committee, and a letter of Lord Durham, written in anticipation of the event, sums up with great force the reasons for an early dissolution. The crisis was precipitated by the action of General Gascoyne, member for Liverpool, who moved before the house could go into committee that in no case should the number of representatives from England and Wales be diminished. In the hope of conciliating some wavering members, the ministry framed certain modifications of their original scheme, but they do not seem to have entertained the idea of accepting Gascoyne's proposal in its entirety. In the division, which took place on April 19, they were defeated by 299 votes to 291, and on the following morning advised the king to dissolve. In spite of his former refusal, more than once repeated, the king yielded to necessity, feeling that another change of government, in the midst of European complications, and in prospect of revolutionary agitation in the country, would be a greater evil than a general election.

The opposition, flushed with victory, pressed its advantage to extremes, and successfully resisted a motion for the grant of supplies. Urged by Althorp, the cabinet promptly resolved on recommending that the dissolution should be immediate, and the king, roused to energy by indignation, eagerly adopted their recommendation. Indeed, on hearing that Lord Wharncliffe intended to move in the house of lords for an address to the crown against a dissolution, he strongly resented such an attempt to interfere with his prerogative, and declared himself ready to start at once and dissolve parliament in person. Difficulties being raised about preparing the royal carriages in time, he cut them short by remarking that he was prepared to go in a hackney-coach – a royal saying which spread like wildfire over the country. Both houses were scenes of confusion and uproar when he arrived, preceded by the usual discharges of artillery, which excited the angry disputants to fury. Lord Mansfield, who was supporting the motion for an address, continued speaking as the king entered, until he was forcibly compelled to resume his seat. Even Peel was only restrained by like means from disregarding the appearance of the usher of the black rod who came to summon the commons from the bar of the house. The king preserved his composure, and announced an immediate prorogation of parliament with a view to its dissolution, and an appeal to the country on the great question of reform. Such an appeal could only be made to constituencies under threat of thorough reconstruction or total extinction, but from this moment the ultimate issue ceased to be doubtful.

CHAPTER XIV.
THE REFORM

The general election which took place in the summer of 1831 was perhaps the most momentous on record. The news of the sudden dissolution, carrying with it the assurance of the king's hearty assent to reform, stirred popular enthusiasm to an intensity never equalled before or since. From John o' Groat's to the Land's End a cry was raised of The bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill. This cry signified more than appears on the surface, and was not wholly one-sided in its application. No doubt it was a passionate and defiant warning against any manipulation or dilution of the bill in a reactionary sense, but it was also a distinct protest against attempts by the extreme radicals to amend it in an opposite direction. Now, as ever, the impulse was given by the middle classes, and they were in no mood to imperil their own cause by revolutionary claims. They could not always succeed, however, in checking the fury of the populace, which had been taught to clamour for reform as the precursor of a good time coming for the suffering and toiling masses of mankind. The streets of London were illuminated, and the windows of those who omitted to illuminate or were otherwise obnoxious were tumultuously demolished by the mob, which did not even spare Apsley House, the town residence of the Duke of Wellington. But, except in Scotland, no formidable riots occurred for the present, and some good resulted from the new experience of popular opinion gained by candidates even from unreformed constituencies hitherto obedient to oligarchical influence, but animated for the moment by a certain spirit of independence.

Having sanctioned the dissolution, the king addressed an elaborate letter to Grey, in which he did not disguise his own misgivings about the perilous experiment of reform. Chiefly dreading a collision between the two houses, he never ceased to press on his ministers the expediency of making all possible sacrifices consistent with the spirit of the bill in order to conciliate opposition in the house of peers. Grey's constant reply was that no concessions would propitiate men bent on driving the government from office, and that no measure less efficacious than that already introduced would satisfy the just expectations of the people. Both of these arguments were perfectly sound, and the constitutional triumph ultimately achieved was largely due to the admirable tenacity of purpose which refused to remodel the original reform bill in any essential respect to please either the borough-mongers or the radicals. The elections were conducted on the whole in good order. Seventy-six out of eighty-two English county members (including the four Yorkshire members), and the four members for the city of London, were pledged to vote for the bill. Several notable anti-reformers were among the many county representatives who failed to obtain re-election; even some of the doomed boroughs did not venture to return anti-reformers; and the government found itself supported by an immense nominal majority. The new bill, introduced on June 24 by Lord John Russell, who had recently been admitted in company with Stanley to the cabinet, differed little from the old one. The number of boroughs to be totally disfranchised was slightly greater, that of boroughs to be partially disfranchised slightly less, but the net effect of the disfranchising and enfranchising schedules was the same, and the £10 rental suffrage was retained. The measure was allowed to pass its first reading after one night's discussion. The debates on the second reading lasted three nights, but the bill passed this stage on July 8 by a majority of 136 in a house of 598 members.

SECOND REFORM BILL.

The victory, however, though great, was far indeed from proving decisive. By adopting obstructive tactics, of a kind to be perfected in a later age, the opposition succeeded in prolonging the discussion in committee over forty nights, until September 7. Though Peel separated himself from the old tories, and steadily declined to cabal with O'Connell's faction against the government, such an unprofitable waste of time could not have taken place without his tacit sanction. Only one important alteration was made in the bill. This was the famous "Chandos clause," proposed by Lord Chandos, son of the Duke of Buckingham, whereby the county suffrage was extended to all tenants-at-will of £50 rental and upwards. A very large proportion of tenant farmers thus became county voters, and for the most part followed the politics of their landlords. It may be doubted whether Grey seriously lamented Chandos's intervention; at all events it went far to verify his own prediction that aristocratic dominion would not be undermined by reform.¹⁰⁴ Meanwhile, the country was naturally impatient of the vexatious delay, and a somewhat menacing conference took place between the political unions of Birmingham, Manchester, and Glasgow. Happily public attention was diverted to some extent by the coronation, which took place on the 8th. The bill was carried more rapidly through its later stages, and was finally passed in the house of commons on the 21st, though by a reduced majority of 345 to 236.

On the following day the bill reached the house of lords and was set down for its second reading on October 3. Thenceforth all the hopes and fears of its friends and enemies were concentrated on the proceedings in that house, whose ascendency in the state was at stake. The question: "What will the lords do?" was asked all over the country with the deepest anxiety. The debate lasted five nights, and is admitted to have been among the finest reported in our parliamentary history. All the leading peers took part in it, and several of them were roused by the occasion to unwonted eloquence, but the palm was generally awarded to the speeches of Grey, Harrowby, Brougham, and Lyndhurst. The first of these occupied a position which gave increased weight to his counsels, since he was the veteran advocate of reform and yet known to be a most loyal member of the nobility which now stood on its trial. In his opening speech he appealed earnestly to the bench of bishops, as disinterested parties and as ministers of peace, not to set themselves against the almost unanimous will of the people. Brougham's great oration on the last night of the debate contained a masterly review of the whole question, and, in spite of its theatrical conclusion, when he sank upon his knees, extorted the admiration of his bitterest critics as a consummate exhibition of his marvellous powers.

But very few of the peers were open to persuasion; the votes of anti-reformers were mainly guided by a shortsighted conception of their own interests, and Eldon did not shrink from contending that nomination boroughs were in the nature of property rather than of trusts. A memorable division ended in the rejection of the second reform bill on the 8th by 199 votes to 158. Twenty-one bishops voted against it. The king lost no time in reminding Grey of his own warning against submitting the bill, without serious modifications, to the judgment of the house of lords. He also intimated beforehand that he could not consent to any such creation of peers as would convert the minority into a majority. Grey at once admitted that he could not ask for so high-handed an exercise of the royal prerogative, and undertook to remain at his post, on condition of being allowed to introduce a third reform bill as comprehensive as its predecessor. Thereupon the king abandoned his intention of proroguing parliament by commission, and came down in person to do so on the 20th when he delivered a speech clearly indicating legislation on reform as the work of the next session.

REFORM BILL RIOTS.

During the interval between the 8th and the 20th it became evident that the reform movement, quickened by the action of the upper house, would rise to a dangerous height. A vote of confidence in the government, brought forward by Lord Ebrington, eldest son of Earl Fortescue, was carried by a majority of 131, and speeches were made in support of it which encouraged, in the form of prediction, every kind of popular agitation short of open violence. In the course of this debate Macaulay, the future historian of the English revolution, delivered one of those highly wrought orations which adorn the political literature of reform. The excitement in London was great, but kept for the most part within reasonable bounds, partly by the firm and sensible attitude of Melbourne as home secretary. The mob, however, vented its rage in window breaking and personal assaults on some prominent anti-reformers, one of whom, Lord Londonderry, was knocked off his horse by a volley of stones. In the provinces more serious disturbances broke out. At Derby the rioters actually stormed the city jail, releasing the prisoners, and were only repelled in their attack on the county jail by the fire of a military force. At Nottingham they wreaked their vengeance on the Duke of Newcastle by burning down Nottingham Castle, which belonged to him, and were proceeding to further outrages when they were overawed by a regiment of hussars. A great open-air meeting of the political union was held at Birmingham, while the bill was still before the house of lords, at which a refusal to pay taxes was openly recommended in the last resort, and votes of thanks were passed to Althorp and Russell. The former, in acknowledging it, wisely condemned such lawless proceedings; the latter unwisely made use of a phrase which gravely displeased the king: "It is impossible that the whisper of faction should prevail against the voice of a nation". Both were called to account in the house of commons for holding correspondence with an illegal association, but disclaimed any recognition of the Birmingham union as a body, and fully admitted the responsibility of the government for the maintenance of order.

This assurance was about to be tested by the most atrocious outbreak which disgraced the cause of reform. On Saturday, the 29th, Wetherell, as recorder of Bristol, entered the city to open the commission on the following Monday. Of all the anti-reformers, he was perhaps the most vehement and unpopular, but his visit to Bristol was in discharge of an official duty, and had been sanctioned expressly by the government. Nevertheless, the cavalcade which escorted him was assailed by a furious rabble on its way to the guildhall, and from the guildhall to the mansion house, where he was to dine. For a while, they were kept back or driven back by a large force of constables, but, on some of these being withdrawn, their ferocity increased, and threatened a general assault on the mansion house. In vain did the mayor address them and read the riot act; they overpowered the constables, and carried the mansion house by storm, the mayor and the magistrates escaping by the back premises, while the recorder prudently left the city. At last the military were called upon to act, and two troops of cavalry were ordered out. But the military as well as the civil authorities showed a strange weakness and vacillation in presence of an emergency only to be compared with the Lord George Gordon riots of a by-gone generation. After making one charge and dispersing the populace for the moment, the cavalry were sent back to their barracks, and when one troop was recalled on the following (Sunday) morning, the rioters were all but masters of the city. Many of them, having plundered the cellars of the mansion house, were infuriated by drink; they broke into the Bridewell, the new city jail, and the county jail, set free the prisoners, and fired the buildings. They next proceeded to burn down the mansion house, the bishop's palace, the custom-house, and the excise-office. The cathedral is said to have been saved by the resolute stand of a few volunteers hastily rallied by one of the officials. In the midst of all this havoc, the cavalry were almost passive, Colonel Brereton, the commanding officer, waiting for orders from the magistrates, and actually withdrawing a part of his small force when it was most needed, because it had incurred the special hatred of the criminals.

On the morning of Monday, the guardians of law and order seemed to have recovered their courage; at all events, the cavalry, no longer forbidden to charge, and headed by Major Mackworth, soon cleared the streets, fresh troops poured in, and the police made a number of arrests. The reign of anarchy was at an end, having lasted three days. When a return of casualties was made up, it showed that only twelve were known to have lost their lives, besides ninety-four disabled, most of whom were the victims of excessive drunkenness or of the flames kindled by themselves. But, though the riot was quelled, it was some proof of its deliberate promotion, and of the aims which its ringleaders had in view, that parties of them issuing out from Bristol attempted to propagate sedition in Somersetshire. A special commission sent down to Bristol condemned to death several of the worst malefactors; four were hanged and eighty-eight sentenced either to transportation or to lighter punishments; and Colonel Brereton destroyed himself rather than face the verdict of a court-martial.

On the same Monday, the 31st, Burdett took the chair at a meeting in Lincoln's Inn Fields, called for the purpose of forming a "National Political Union" in London. Soon afterwards, however, he retired from the organisation, on the nominal ground that half of the seats on its council were allotted to the working classes, but more probably because he was beginning to be alarmed by the violence of his associates. His fears were justified by a manifesto summoning a mass meeting of the working-classes to assemble at White Conduit House on November 7, for the purpose of ratifying a new and revolutionary bill of rights. This time the government was on its guard, and Melbourne plainly informed a working-class deputation that such a meeting would certainly be seditious, and perhaps treasonable, in law. The plan was therefore abandoned, and soon afterwards a royal proclamation was issued, declaring organised political associations, assuming powers independent of the civil magistrates, to be "unconstitutional and illegal". The political unions proposed to consider themselves outside the scope of the proclamation, which had little visible effect, though it was not without its value as proving that the government was a champion of order as well as of liberty.

NEGOTIATIONS WITH WAVERERS.

During the short recess of less than six weeks political discontent, constantly growing, was aggravated by industrial distress and gloomy forebodings of a mysterious pestilence, already known as cholera. A voluminous correspondence was carried on between the king and Grey on the means of silencing the political unions and smoothing the passage of a new reform bill. It was not in the king's nature to conceal his own conservative leanings, especially on the imaginary danger of increasing the metropolitan constituencies, and Grey complained more than once of these sentiments being confided, or at least becoming known, to opponents of the government. At the same time attempts were being made not only by the king himself, but also by peers of moderate views to arrange a compromise which might save the honour of the government, and yet mitigate the hostility of the tory majority in the upper house. In these negotiations behind the scenes, Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Carr, Bishop of Worcester, took part, as representing the episcopal bench, while Lords Harrowby and Wharncliffe, in temporary concert with Chandos, professed to speak for the "waverers" among peers. As little of importance resulted from their well-meant efforts, and as nearly all the supposed "waverers," including the bishops, drifted into open opposition, it is the less necessary to dwell at length on a very tedious chapter in the history of parliamentary reform. Suffice it to say that when parliament reassembled on December 6, 1831, the prospects of the forthcoming bill were no brighter than in October, except so far as the danger of rejecting it had become more apparent.

The final reform bill introduced by Lord John Russell on the 12th was identical in its principle and its essential features with the former ones. The chief alteration was the maintenance of the house of commons at its full strength of 658 members. This enabled its framers not only to reduce the number of wholly disfranchised boroughs (schedule A) from sixty to fifty-six, and that of semi-disfranchised boroughs (schedule B) from forty-six to thirty, but to assign a larger number of members to the prosperous towns enfranchised. The bill was at once read a first time and passed its second reading after two nights' debate on the 16th by a majority of 324 to 162, or exactly two to one. But, after a short adjournment for the Christmas holidays, a debate of twenty-two nights took place in committee, and the opposition made skilful use of the many vulnerable points in the new scheme. Every variation from the original bill, even by way of concession, was subjected to minute criticism, and especially the fact that the schedules were now framed, not on a scale of population only, but on a mixed basis, partly resting on population, partly on the number of inhabited houses, and partly on the local contribution to assessed taxes.

It was easy to pick such a compound scale to pieces, to uphold the claims of one venal borough against another equally venal, and even to reproach the government with inconsistency in relying on the census of 1831, instead of on that of 1821 – a course which the opposition had specially urged upon them. But it was not so easy to combat the irresistible arguments in favour of the bill on its general merits, to ignore the reasonable concessions on points of detail which it embodied, or to explain away the patent fact that no measure less stringent would satisfy the people. There was therefore an air of unreality about this debate, spirited as it was, nor is it easy to understand what practical object enlightened men like Peel could have sought in prolonging it. He well knew, and admitted in private correspondence, that reform was inevitable; he must have known that a sham reform would be a stimulus to revolutionary agitation; yet he strove to mutilate the bill so that it might pass its second reading in the house of lords, and there undergo such further mutilation as would destroy its efficacy as a settlement of the question. For the present he yielded. No attempt was made to obstruct the bill on its third reading, when the division showed 355 votes to 239, and it passed the commons on March 23 without any division.

THE THIRD REFORM BILL.

Such a result would have been conclusive in any parliament during the second half of the nineteenth century. A house of commons elected by the old constituencies, and under the old franchises, had declared in favour of a well-considered reform bill. The same constituencies voting under the same franchises had returned an increased majority in support of the same, or very nearly the same measure; this measure, with slight variations, had been adopted by an immense preponderance of votes in the new house of commons: yet its fate in the house of lords was very doubtful. Ever since the autumn of 1831, the expedient of swamping the house of lords had been seriously contemplated. It was supremely distasteful to the king, and Grey himself, in common with a majority of the cabinet, was strongly averse from it. Then came the intervention of Harrowby and Wharncliffe, the failure of which strengthened the hands of the more determined reformers in the cabinet, and induced the king to give way. Having already created a few peers on the coronation, he consented to a limited addition in the last resort, but with the reservation that eldest sons of existing peers should be called up in the first instance, and upon the assurance that, reform once carried, all further encroachments of the democracy should be resisted by the government. He even authorised Grey to inform Harrowby that he had given the prime minister this power, in the hope that it would never be needed, and that at least the second reading of the bill would be carried in the house of lords without it. His objection to a permanent augmentation of the peerage remained unshaken, and Grey promised to propose no augmentation at all before the second reading.

This compact, if it can be so called, was fulfilled in the letter, for the bill was read a first time without a division, and it passed the second reading on April 14 by a majority of 184 to 175. To all appearance a notable process of conversion had been wrought among the peers, seventeen of whom actually changed sides, while ten opponents of the former bill absented themselves, and twelve new adherents were gained. However encouraging these figures might be, the ministers were under no illusion. They had the best reason for expecting the worst from the struggle in committee, and they were conscious of gradually losing the king's confidence. The very demonstrations of popular enthusiasm for reform which impressed others with a sense of its necessity impressed him with a sense of its danger; the political unions and the Bristol riots alarmed him extremely; and the foreign policy of the government elicited from him so outspoken a protest that Grey tendered his resignation. The difficulty was overcome for the moment, but recurred in a more serious form when parliament reassembled on May 7. Lyndhurst at once proposed in committee to postpone the consideration of schedule A; in other words, to shelve the most vital provisions of the bill until the rest should have been dissected in a hostile spirit. This proposal is supposed to have been concerted with Harrowby and Wharncliffe, if not to have received the sanction of the Duke of Wellington. It was adopted by 151 votes to 116, and the cabinet, on May 8, courageously determined to make a decisive stand. They firmly advised the king to confer peerages on "such a number of persons as might ensure the success of the bill". The principle thus expressed had, as has been seen, been reluctantly approved by the king himself, but he recoiled from the application of it when he learned that it would involve at least fifty new creations. After a day's thought, he closed with the only alternative, and accepted the resignation of his ministry. He then sent for Lyndhurst, who of course at once communicated with the duke.