BOOKS.
EARL GREY ON PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT
AND REFORM.* "NE sutor ultra crepidam." The debater should confine himself to tongue-work. Cicero, as Juvenal intimates, would have been safe from the cutthroats of Antony had he only written verses. Richelieu made an indifferent figure in his poetical attempts. Even Charles James Fox succeeded but poorly on that great theme of Whiggery James the Second and the Revolution. Earl Grey likewise scarcely sustains his reputation for force and weight in this Essay on Parliamentary Government and the needed Re- form. The substance and treatment are of the old manner ; just what we should expect to meet with in a respectable constitutional book of the last century, or a college prize-essay by a promising young man. The rather trite matter is animated by a worldly if not a living spirit. The official man and the minister are con- tinually visible ; sometimes in a practical remark, the evident result of experience ; more frequently in a sort of demand for the greater comfort and influence of Ministers, which must spring from their greater patronage and power. The Earl repeats after the Duke, "How is the Queen's government to be carried on ? " and his arguments, perhaps rather his affirmations, an- swer the question, By the possession of more good things to give away." The insubordinate character of the House of Com- mons, the weakness of Ministers, with all the evils that flow from that weakness, and the greater evils that threaten to follow, are according to our author mainly owing to the denuded state of the Premier and his colleagues. It may be so ; but we think a good deal of the weakness is also owing to the Ministers them- selves—to their incapacity of seeing the actual wants of the time, their deficiency in sUl and courage to supply those wants, and a timorous postponement of public measures to the security of their own position. A Minister with a policy is strong enough to carry it out ; even a cry, though only about Yeh and an un- fair coalition, answers its purpose for the nonce. Poetasters are always complaining about an utilitarian age having outgrown the taste for poetry ; but for " poetry" should be read their own poetry. Tennyson sells well enough ; and the Cavalier Ballads of Professor Aytoun have run through many editions. The official spirit of Earl Grey's Essay is more fully shown in the manner—a kind of confident glibness, which puts forth re- ceived conclusions or well-known facts as if an oracle were an- nouncing a revelation ; gliding over circumstances and reasons opposed to the writer's view, as if they were nonexistent,—" ig- noring," in fact, all he does not see or know, and affirming what- ever he wishes without much regard to the actual state of the case. One of the chapters of Earl Grey's book is on the effects good and bad of the Reform Act. Another is devoted to the origin of Parliamentary Government, which, as opposed to Representative Government, he considers peculiar to England, and dates from the Revolution. He then examines the evils and the benefits that arise from Parliamentary Government, as well as their causes ; the substance of all this, as before intimated, belonging to the known already, whether as regards facts or authority. One chapter discusses the Reform now required ; another Vie exercise of patronage under Parliamentary regime ; a closing chapter treats of Parliamentary Government in the Colonies, from which Earl Grey predicts actual mischief at least in the smaller settlements. They do not want Parliaments, to distract the colonists and im- pede business, but a Governor, to keep them quiet ; just as our. Plantagenet and Tudor Kings managed matters without constitu- tional Ministers, or troubling Parliaments, save for a little money now and then. As for " responsible government," the Colonies had it in a perfection which Old England had not—the Governor was responsible to Mr. Mothercountry. " There was this most important difference between a Colonial Governor and an English Sovereign of the houses of Plantagenet or Tudor, that the former was responsible to a distant and generally an impartial authority, to which the colonists could always appeal to relieve them from a Governor who abused his power. The Crown could recall any Governor who failed in the discharge of his duties; and if it refused to do so on a well-grounded complaint from the inhabitants of a colony, they were entitled to lay their grievance before Parliament ; to which the Ministers on whose advice the Crown had acted were bound to answer for what had been done. Thus the chief objection to the system of government which formerly prevailed in this country did not apply to its operation in the Colonies, while there was no apparent obstacle to its producing in them the same advantages it has done here.
" It will be seen from the above statement that the responsibility of Co.. lonial Governors under the former system of government was a substantial one. It was therefore a mistake to give to Parliamentary or party govern- ment in the Colonies the name of responsible government,' in order to distinguish it from that -which it superseded. Under the old system, the responsibility of those who exercised power was quite as real as under the new one; perhaps it was even more so."
Of the suggestions towards a new Reform Bill, the best that can be said of them is that they are generally sensible, but not always very practicable. Earl Grey is for postponing the ques- tion, not exactly till he can get the most prudent men of all par- ties to unite upon a bill; for that, he admits, might be difficult, and would be denounced as unconstitutional, secret, dictatorial.
" Whatever steps are taken must be open and avowed, and ought also to have the character of a formal proceeding, sanctioned by authority.
" If I might hazard a suggestion on the subject, I would venture to re- commend that the Queen should nominate a committee of her Privy Coun- cil, composed of members taken from different political parties, to consider * Parliamentary Government Considered with reference to a _Reform of Parlia. meat : an Essay. By Earl Grey. Published by Bentley.
and report what measures of reform ought to be adopted. • * • • A Com- mission constituted like that which so ably investigated the question of the Poor-law could throw little light on this point; but a well-selected Com- mittee of the Privy Council might inquire, as well as a Commission, into the best mode of reforming our representation, while it would also afford the means of discovering what measures could be carried, if it had among its members some of the loaders of all the great parties in the state, not ex- cluding the Radical party. Even if it should prove impossible to induce the members of this party to accept as sufficient such reforms as others would regard as safe, there ought to be a full opportunity of considering their views ; and the party numbers in its ranks men who might with great propriety be made Privy Councillors for the purpose of enabling them to serve on such a Committee."
The objects or principles that should be aimed at are thus enu- merated.
" A reform is wanted, though not for the same reasons as formerly. In the present state of things, the objects that ought to be aimed at by such a measure are to interest a larger proportion of the people in the constitution, by investing them with political rights, without disturbing the existing balance of power; to discourage bribery at elections, without giving more influence to the arts of demagogues; to strengthen the legitimate authority of the Executive Government, and at the same time to guard against its being abused ; and to render the distribution of the Parliamentary fran- chise less unequal and less anomalous, but yet carefully to preserve that character which has hitherto belonged to the House of Commons, from its including among its members men representing. all the different classes of society and all the different interests and opinions to be found in the nation."
These general suggestions or texts are pursued at some length. The most important by far is the last. This is not deeply treated by Earl Grey ; though the variety of constituents, and conse- quently of Members, is that which, we conceive, really separates English Parliamentary Government from the Representative sys- tems of other countries. If the history of the English consti- tution be carefully, studied, it will be found that interests, not population, were the essential principle of Parliament. From the very earliest period, men were summoned to the Great Council not as individual persons, but as representing some section of the national interest. The greater barons represented land and mili- tary power ; the lesser barons by delegation represented the same interest, though in a somewhat different form. The clergy repre- sented intellect and learning, or, if you like so to term it, po- litical ability, as well as land ; the ecclesiastical lands, however, differing from lay lands by being generally better cultivated, more agricultural and less martial. A sciolist may say that this was all individual ; but individuals were sunk altogether. Churchmen came es officio, the barons by tenure, the seat follow- ing the estate, and the feudal system always securing a grown man to represent it. As the burgher interests grew in wealth and power the same principle obtained ; and though the electors and elected were all citizens, yet mere geographical position secured a -great variety among the burgesses. The shipping, the mercan- tile, the trading, and in course of time the manufacturing in- terests, were all represented, as well as the landed interests by the knights of the shire, superseding the lesser barons. Something similar prevailed throughout Europe where there was any national as distinguished from municipal representation ; the substantial base and variety being greater, we think, in the North than the South. The four estates of Sweden—Nobles, Clergy, Burghers, Peasants—may now have been outgrown by time ; but in their early vigour they were a more varied body than the three orders that constituted the States-General of France.
The system of squaring miles and counting heads, or in more scientific phrase of proportioning representation to population, practically originated with the American constitution ; the force of circumstances and the activity of unscrupulous politicians brought their representation to what we see. The plan of cutting up a country into mathematical divisions, and giving a vote to every male as one of his " rights of man," was laid down as a prin- ciple with the French Revolution ; and just in proportion as that is acted on will Representative Government differ from English Parliamentary Government ; becoming impracticable and finally contemptible as in France, or debased as in America. Its inevi- table effect is to dominate all the superior minds of a country to those of the lowest class in it, and to establish a dead uniformity among that class. Universal suffrage, if arranged according to natural geographical divisions, would probably have less of this uniformity from the mere operation of industrial causes, than a more restricted suffrage in a country cut up into electoral districts like the squares of a chess-board. We have an example of that in our own Metropolitan districts. Individually, those districts must be richer in residents of property, respectability, experience, and cultivated intellect of every kind, than any other place in the country or perhaps the world. Yet, with an occasional exception, the Metropolitan Members are the opprobrium of Parliament. Even here, however, there is an instance supporting the view now taken. The " City " is no longer what it was in point of cha- racter when its merchant princes resided there and took part in its government, or even when Beekford boldly confronted his Sovereign. But the Members for London in the aggregate are superior to those of the Metropolitan districts ; apparently be- cause there are particular interests to be represented, and while the constituents are too shrewd and experienced, and have too much at stake to become the followers of mischievous demagogues, the leading men of any substantial class are upon the whole of a safer and better kind than mere trading politicians. Yet it is in this direction that danger lurks ; not merely be- cause proportioning "representation to population" is patronized by an active class of politicians, and is really specious in appear- ance, but because it is the least trouble to official men. To dis-
cover the real representative wants of a country so highly arti- ficial and complicated as this, and properly to supply them, is the work of a statesman. To carry out the other scheme, an arith- metician, with a map and population-tables before him, is as good -a constitution-maker as Alfred, Bacon, or Burke.
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