THE NEW REFORM BILL.

West Coast Times, Issue 216, 29 May 1866, Page 2

THE NEW REFORM BILL.

[From tho « Spectator," Maroh I?.] The long promised Reform Bill wad introduced on Monday night in a House crowded from floor to ceiling. Archbishop Manning lurked in a corner: under the galleries, vigilantly and perseveringly watching the scene-^-for he staid through the dull dinner time, to hear Mr Horsman's political Ultra* montanisni. Lord Russell and the Duke of Cambridge watched from the corresponding place on the opposite side of: the House. Lord O*ranviile, his hands thrust through his hair, and in various other attitudes apparently indicative of despair — though his countenance was tranquil — observed eagerly the effect of tho medicine which. Mr Gladstone was persuading the patient to take. Mr Lowe and Mr Bright, restless under the pressure of opposite moods of feeling, glowered at the orator; while M. S. Mill fixed on him that keen and vigilant gaze which — directed to speakers on gas companies and the introducers of Reform Bills alike — is said to "haunt" the reporters. Never was a revelation better listened to or less exciting in its effects. Tho £14 county franchise waa received with wonder, but the £7 borough franchise with positive amusement, a half-titter mingling with the cheers. Mr. Gladstone's own manner was somewhat listless. He explained the details with his usual lucidity, depreciating the effect of his fancy . franchise as he went on, but the speech was not a great ono. The appeal at the end was merely an eloquent tag, and everybody felt when he sat down that he had thrown no life into th 9 bill— that it was not his own bill, but the Cabinet's. Lord Russell, however, seemed on tho whole to chuckle over it in his corner, and the feeling among spectators .appeared to bo rather dubious— a feeling that the bill might do, if Mr. Gladstone had had any particular reason why it should be that bill and no other, which he evidently had not. The provisions of the bill are simple. It is only a franchise bill, Mr Gladstone asserting that a redistribution of seats would have prolonged the discussion beyond any chance of passing it this session, but telling the House (amidst derisive laughter) that they would be quite competent to consider the redistribution bill without a fresh dissolution, even though the franchise bill should be passed, and new constituencies created. The county franchise proposed is LI 4, and the Government offer to extend the county rights of 40s freeholders in boroughs to copyholders and leaseholders of equal value, but the clause to this effect promised by Mr Gladstone seems to be missing in the bill. A savings' bank deposit of LSO, continued for two years, is to qualify any one not otherwise qualified to vote for the place, whether oounty or borough, within which he resides. ■ The LIO borough occupancy qualification is to be reduced to L 7, and all the enactments requiring voters to have paid their local rates or Government taxes are to be repealed. Joint occupiers of houses are to vote if they pay as muoh as LlO clear annually each for their premises, without regard to furniture or attendance. Mr. Gladstone calculates that these measures will add 204,000 • persons of the " working class " to the borough constituencies, making with tho present 126,000 of that 330,000 in all of working class borough voters. The total addition to the borough, consituencies will be about 171,000, making altogether 850,000 borough voters, ot whom 330,000 are working class persons, and 680,000 country voters, in all perhaps about 1,500,000 electors. When Mr Gladstone sat down the House emptied, and Mr Marsh, the member for Salisbury, with his wonted courage, gesticulated away to emptying benches and loudly conversing members, by way of exposing what Mr Bright afterwards called " the Botany Bay view of the franohise." Mr Laing spoke later in the evening, with moderation and effect, against the bill, urging that if any anomaly really wanted remedy, it was the gross anomaly in the distribution of seats, and not the franchise. He showed that Mr Gladstone, in 1860, had«believed that the working olass had only oneninth of the borough votes, instead of one-fifth or fourth, and appealed to the ghost of Lord Palmerston whether under tho new circum?,. stances he would not have declined to interfere to alter such a settlement as that of 1832 altogether. Mr Laing's speech was in fact purely conservative, and urged the anomaly which is not likely to be immediately taken in hand, only as a foil to the less striking anomaly with whioh Mr Gladstone proposed to deal. But if purely conservative, it was sensible, whioh was more than could be said of Mr Horsmau, who mingled literary epigrams and senseless violence in a manner that wearied the House, in spite of its love for personalities, and did more for the new bill than any ef its supporters had done. He was amusing when he compared Mr Glad- ' stone's sudden plunge into . Reform, to the Amateur Casual's plunge into the mutton broth, adding that he had been " soiled and shivering in questionable company ever since," but on the whole Mr Horsman was weak, violent, and incoherent. Mr Horsman is going down as an orator.

Mr Lowe's speech, which was expected to damage the bill exceedingly, was not one of his happiest efforts. His most original point was the remark that material improvement had brought constituencies muoh nearer to their members, that pressure was therefor^ m.wh nw $v9ot w fl iwwtyW>\ m$

that democratic constituencies would be much less patient and considerate in their use of this engine than the present owners of the franchise. This is a sound argument, but the rest of the speech consisted of reasons against any reform whatever, based on two ideas, that the lower you go the more venality, drunkenness, and violence you find, and that the House of Commons does its work, and more especially its peculiar work, which is finance, admirably. He argued strongly against the introduction of a bill, to be followed bj three other Reform Biils, and in a peroration of some dignity declared that he left to Mr Gladstone the triumph of carrying his measure, " Mine be the glory of having, to the utmost of my poor ability, resisted it." Mr Bright's speech on the bill was in reality the strongest made in its support, but his apparent line was simply toleration. He condemned the proposal for a county franchise as feeble, a £10 qualification hating been repeatedly agreed to on both sides, and offered to voto with the Tories for its reduction in committee. He accepted the £7 franchise "only fora time," condemned the Savings Bank franchise, convicted Mr Lowe of changing opinions uttered in 1859, laughed at him and Mr Marsh, the Australian member for Salisbury, as persons of Botany Bay ideas, quizzed Mr Horsman for retiring to a political cave of Adullam, to which he invited everyone in distress and everyone discontented, observed that Mr Lowe's patron, Lord Landsdowne, could return his butler, warned the House that whenever disorder occurred in Europe the nation would ask much more, and that, even without disorder emigration might weak the country, and Bat down, leaving the impression that the bill was too moderate for him, but that ho would accept it as an instalment of justice. As at least ten years must elapse before there is another bill, the effect of this was to propitiate many conservatives. Lord Cranborno made an able speech after his kind— clear, acrid, aud incisive — against the bill. His point was, that if the bill passed, the working class would have the absolute control of 133 seats, and, when the redistribution was complete, would probably have 168, being more than a clear majority of the 334 English borough members in the House. He was ready to remedy anomalies if the country wished it, but the greatest anomaly he knew of was the absence of direct representation for property. With characteristic audacity he declared that the owners of property were not adequately represented — as if the House had not passed the Cattle Plague Act like a coercion Bill, and that the working men wanted to establish the Socialist droit dv travail, as if the troit dv travail were anything but a law with, a cruel labor test. He finished by declaring that if a time of disorder ever came, and the people made great demands, they would not make them the less violent because of any Reform Bill — which is possible; but the Viscount forgets that a sound bill would place the whole of the great cities on tho resisting side. Househould suffrage in great boroughs only would place tke only class which can revolt on the side of order.