FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1878.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1238, 22 February 1878, Page 2

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1878.

In recent speeches on the Manhood Suffrage question, frequent use is wade of the name of Mr. Gladstone, and he is represented as a warm advocate of such a measure. But apparently a rather unwarrantable construction is put upon his words. In the November number of The Nineteenth Century appears a paper on " The County franchise," from the pen of the great Liberal statesman, and in the course of it he discusses at some length this very question. After a few introductory remarks, he goes on to give a sketch of the Parliamentary Constitution of Great Britain prior to 1,8.32. It was then, he said, " full of Haws in theory, and blots in practice. * * * But it was, notwithstanding, one of the wonders of the world. Time was its paivnt; silence was its nur.se. % * * Whatever its defects, it had imbibed. /3;jough of the free air of heaven to keep the lungs of liberty in play. * * * It every variety of franchise, from pure nomination by an individual down, or up to, household suffrage." After dwelling at some length on the service it rendered to the country, Mr. Gladstone goes on to say that his object in this retrospect was to suggest *'that the true character of our working Parliamentary system is not determined exclusively by the condition of the franchise and what is termed the disr tribution of seats. * * * The old system was not condemned principally for its working demerits. * * * It was for anomaly and inequality, amounting to caricature, for the representation of the peerage in a popular Chamber; above all it was \ipon the general doctrine of self'goy.e?mment, and for the general exclusion of a c&se, whose fitness none dared to impeach, faojn the franchise/' He then proceeds to discuss the question, whether the franchise ought to bo given to householders in the counties, and in the course of his remarks, says of qualification " there is really, M wo .carry the strict sense of the word to its extreme, .no such thing. No man is perfectly qualified .either for judging, or for conducting the of. this great empire. It is a question of degree, who is the least dhtqualified; and 'qualification' is therefore a relative term. Ono element of qualification is interest, and another is the disposition, the desire, to judge rightly and patriot!cally of public questions. Again, as to the " right" to exercise the franchise, he says the introduction of fee word is apt to have a maddening effect, " and jn.auy who will teach and preach to the utmost, and without the smallest qualification, the right of property, as if it were the eleventh commandment, seem to forget that, apart from degree, it is in laud the same as the right of franchise —that is to say, it is good for tho community, and //* limits and conditions are to he decided by the community through its proper organs/' Mr. Gladstone docs not attempt to'pwwc *%at'every man has a right, as such, to a vote, JjEe" of course, that it is to be desired that ali i who live in the couutry ahould take au interest in it; should love that couutry, and one of the means of fostering this is to invest them with a share in affairs common to others with themselves. And •he gives reasons why men should have a vote: because %ep pay rates and taxes, because by their labor they £Ojetribute to the public wealth, because in nine "i&ssejß. out of ten they give pledges to society by constituting themselves tho heads of households, and because they have tho means of making themselves useful or the contrary. All these are very good reasons why a man shoidd have a vote, but if Mr. Gladstone held Jjhp view that every man had a right to a vote, and one only, as Sir G. Grey holds, it would be? useless bringing them forward. Indeed, be .distinctly expresses an opposite opinion. He ".the right of governing, says Mr. Buvk,e, lies ini wisdom iuicl virtue. The extremes ot, different m capacity, according to tl^ese' qualifications, are separated almost immesurably. While it is em&f t<? maintain that each man may with advantage hay<Q, i some share of political power, it is unreasonable, nay absurd, as I think, in hold in the abstract that all ought to have an faual share. Presumptively, again, the smare ought to vary with the intellectual and moral fitness. But no

scale has ever been discovered by which such an adjustment could be effected. So far, then, as abstract reasoning is concerned, we seem to have arrived at the awkward predicament, a reducfio ad absurdum." He next tries to show that the argument from unequal capacity does not tell so uniformly against the moro numerous class of the community as might be supposed, the popular judgment, on a certain number of important questions, being more just than that of the higher. Then, again, an attempt is made in England to vindicate the authority of mind, as a political element, by giving a certain number of seats in Parliameut to the Universities. In the third place, " the rude and unsatisfactory, but yet practically available, criterion of property has assigned to it a considerable sphere of direct operation, through plurality of franchises, arranged under rules to which the country is accustomed, and wli ich no one wishes to disturb. Hence, while wo very rarely find a labourer with more than one vote, it is almost as rare to find a man of property who has not, in different capacities and constituencies, two, three, or more, up to six, eight, or ten." The extracts which we have given above are enough, wo think, to prove that Mr. Gladstone is far indeed from advocating the wild views on the franchise held by the New Zealand Ministry. With him it is a question of qualification. How far can we go with safety ? Iu the paper from which we have been quoting he tries to prove, and in our opinion succeeds, in doing so, that the household qualification at present enjoyed by the inhabitants of cities and boroughs in Great Britain might be, with advantage to the country and the new voters themselves, extended to the counties. The rural voter has, ho maintains, proved his ability to exercise the franchise, and as his admission to the privilege would not, from past experience, be detremental to the public well-being, there is no reason why he should bo excluded. The whole tone of the paper goes to prove that in Mr. Gladstone's opinion every fresh extension of the franchise must bo demonstrated to be for the good of the community before it is granted. Nay more, and in striking contrast to Sir G. Grey, he holds that, unsatisfactory as it is as a criterion, the present mode of giving the same man a vote in each district in which he holds property is a practically available mode of vindicating the authority of mind in the government of the country. Such, then, are the opinions of the great Liberal leader on the extension of the franchise. More than once in his recent speeches Sir G. Grey has referred to him as holding views identical with his own, but as far as Ave can understand they are about as far apart as the Poles. Having thus shown that the Premier is not justified in claiming Mr. Gladstone as an acvocate for manhood suffrage, we will iu future articles discuss Sir G. Grey's own arguments in favour of such a measure.