TOPICS OF THE DAY.
PARLIAMENTARY STATISTICS.
Tan Statistics published in our Supplement this week, interesting as they are for the light thrown by them on the broader cha- racteristics of our representative system, would yet furnish but a acanty basis of facts on which to found a bill that should aim at amending that system. We should need, for that, to know much more accurately than we do at present, the number of voters that would be added to the electoral body by the -various schemes that have been discussed in the public journals and in Parliament. How many, for instance, would any stated lowering of the franchise add, both in existing Parliamentary Boroughs and in Counties ? How many would be added by an Educational franchise of a given kind ? What would be the character of the constituencies formed by grouping small boroughs together on some definite classi- fication? Even to understand thoroughly the working of the present system—the first essential of safe amendment—we ought to know more minutely than we do how property is divided both in boroughs and counties ; how the several constituencies are divided into large and small holders of property, and the nature of the property held and the occupation followed. All
• this, and much more, only to be attained by contributions of local knowledge, would be desirable for such persons as have to frame the New Reform Bill, or undertake a well-founded criticism upon the present system. Only by such knowledge can the effect—our present representatione-be scientifically connected with its cause— .the condition of the electoral parties. It is to be hoped that government, having had for a year past the necessity of a Reform Bill clearly before them, have not failed to acquire some of this knowledge, and are prepared, along with their bill, whatever it may be, to lay before the public a statement of the facts on which they have founded their anticipation of its probable working. For although legislation is a science almost in its infancy, we take it to be a clear duty of enlightened legislators to do their utmost to rescue it from the dominion of guesses, and so-called theory -founded on it priori principles. Meanwhile the facts we do _possess, though familiar in a scattered form, will be more im- presilere when -Viewed together as presented in our Supplement -today: Though they -suffieientlyetell their own tale and carry their own moral, a comment will not be unacceptable to those who
have no taste for tabulated statements.
- One of the most curious facts in the recent history of English legislation and English parties is the apathy with which Lord Iohn Ruseellei Reform Bill of 1862 was universally received. That bill proposed to do slimy with small constituencies, by grouping several =all towns ;together for one constituency ; to give a vote for both towns and counties, according to the place of residence, to every one who paid two pounds per annum in direct taxes ; to reduce the town franchise to a five-pound occupancy, and the county fran- ehise to a tiveirty-pound occupancy; to abolish the property qualification of Members; and so to remodel the Parliamentary %oath as to admit Jews. the mere suspicion that the bill was oleveily °out:a-Teed to secure the borough influence of leading Whig landowners, would scarcely by itself account for the public apathy, as that was an error to be remedied by amendments in Committee. Nor can the declining condition of the Government have been the effective cause, as a popular Bill would have restored vigour to the Government. Both causes, no doubt, aided ; and perhaps more -than both, the heeling that the Derbyite party, who had been play- -in WI risereasi• tigly successful game for five years, must be com- pelled to take office, to unmask and render evident to the country their imbecility and hypocrisy. Yet we cannot but believe that the main cause of the apathy. then displayed Was that Lord John's Bill failed to meet the two deepest *wants of the popular party. It offered no protection to the voter against improper influences, direct or indirect ; and it 'Went but a single step towards removing the enormous inequali- ties between the number of representatives assigned to equal hum- leers of electors in different constituencies. The improper influence of wealth, whether in the shape of chronic suppression of opinion by landlords, or of sudden counteraction of opinion by bribery- • agents, is the crying evil against which all men who value a po- pular constitution must loudly, protest. The County representa- tion may indeed have fairly represented the opinions of the County voters for the last few years, because the main questions debated auring those years have been questions supposed to affect particu- larly the incomes of farmers and landlords. But the great prepon- -deranee of tenants-at-will over leaseholders renders the farmers as A body necessarily subservient to their landlords, whatever ques- tions may arise : and this is a defect that must be remedied. No Reformer can in his heart deny that it is an evil, however he may object to this or that proposed remedy. By all means, let tradition, family and local associations, worth of cha- -racter, kindness to inferiors, even reverence for rank, have their weight. These are among the most valuable eharac- teristios of a settled and historic people. The value of them con- gas much in the fact that legislative machinery can neither give them nor take them away. What we object to is, that where no ground for these exists, the worthless or stupid owner of some thou- sands of acres can and does compel the cultivators of those acres to give np their rights as citizens, and wins for himself thereby a _power in the state which he has no claim to, and the result of which is mischievous as -Well as exasperating. In Boroughs a
similar result is effected by means not more-base, not mere revolt- ing, but more palpable, and hitherto more (+arable of detection and exposure. It was, we believe, because Lord John Russell's Bill seemed to offer no effective remedy for this single evil in a double shape, that it roused no enthusiasm among real Liberals, and could not save its author from defeat and deposal from office. He is now again at his laboratory. The evil has increased, at least it has be- come more manifest, and has roused in the public mind a deeper disgust, a stronger determination that it shall be remedied. Will Lord John and his colleagues meet this determination? A real representation is the thing wanted, not a representation of men j who are driven or bribed to the poll.
Then for the other point, the inequality of representation. Lord John certainly would have removed the inequality of Caine with its 160 voters returning one Member, and Harwich with its 272 voters returning two Members, while Middlesex County with its 14,000, and Liverpool with its 17,000 voters, returned two Members each. But still, the district of Middlesex with its 113,000 electors would have returned just the lime number of Members as the district of Dorsetshire with its 9000 ; still Huntingdon would have had the same direct influence upon any determination of Parliainent as Liverpool. In brief, while here and there a detail of inequality would have been removed, the principle would have remained in all its grandeur of injustice and exasperation. Let any one glance down the list in our Supple- ment headed "The Representation Grouped in Counties," from Bedfordshire to Yorkshire, and endeavour to justify the allotment of Members on the principle of class representation, on which alone it is possible to attempt a defence of it. We think he would rapidly come to the conclusion that the principle of chance-medley is the only principle to be found there, and the principle of keeping up absurdities after they are proved to be absurdities the only principle on which an argument for its maintenance could be supported. We have too often avowed our reluctance to cut up the old electoral divisions into squares of equal population, to shrink now from the avowal, that even that would be less objectionable than retaining the gross inequalities of the present system, which is the result, of blind chance, of ac- cumulated neglect, and corrupt conaeftatism We do not want -uniform constituencies, nor a Parliament of one colour ; but we 'want variety regulated by an intelligent principle and a knowledge of facto, and a Parliament that shall represent the 'opinionsof the electors in the proportions in which those opinions prevail among the electors. To approximate more nearly to this result, must be the aim of every statesman who seeks to alter from tinee to time the machinery of representation. It may be said that our list of Members arranged ite classes Contradicts our assertion of the need of a redistribution of elie ori- ginal elements of our representation, for that all the great classes of the comnannity are there mane proportion e " Isn't one man as good as another ? of course he is," says Paddy, "and a deal better too." 'So we say of such a notion of the .due proportion of classes in Parliament. One damning blot we note elsewhere'-the absence • of a single man who can speak to the Commons of 'Pee-land of the wants, the opinions, and the thoughts of .the peasantry and artisans. We should hear of no more "strikes," if these men could utter their wrongs, real or fancied, before the Ministers of the Sovereign and the Gentlemen of England, and if they could bring facts to bear upon the question which their opponents must either 'yield to or refute. Then, though we Amid not complain of the number of Peers' sons and brothers, and of °motley gentlemen, amounting to nearly two-thirds of the whole Must if Commons, if they were the sincere deliberate choice of the electors, we do conceive that, elected as they are now, the ear in monstrous disproportion to their worth or wisdom. No''uhf, the fact that they have for the most part some fortune, and entire command of . their leisure, marks them as fitted for an occupation which, in -these days, is no mere amusement for idle hours. But are they in fact mainly -our working politicians ? Do.they go into the House to do the work of the nation ; or'because it is still the most fashionable club in London, And besides secures them a share of the good things a Minister has to give away? But for sinister - influences, is it probable that this businesslike, energetic, and practical country, would choose so large a membe-r of its legislators . among dandies and men of pleasure ? We believe not. Re- move tie operation and the possibility of such influences as we have alluded to, and we are not sure that the aristocracy and gentlemen of England would fill fewer seats in the House of Commons, but we are sure that, in order to retain their hold upon them, they must become different men. If, toe, that vast amount of unnecessary local business now devolving upon Parliament in the first resort were, as it ought to be, arranged, and in the first instance at least discussed by local bodies, the business of a Member of Parliament would not be so harassing, and men of other occupations would find their way there, to whom now the path is closed except at a sacrifice that few will make for such a reward. Our Municipal Corporations, and our proposed County Boards, might thus be made sub- servient to a most important and fruitful branch of Parlia- mentary reform, at once improving the composition and increasing • the efficacy of the House of Commons. At any rate, we think few Englishmen can glance over the list of our present representatives, and look at the gross result of the arrangement in classes, without being startled at the fact, familiar as it is, that so large a propor- tion of our representatives is made up of men returned for no qualification whatever but their hereditary wealth and their ton- nezion with noble families, and so small a proportion of men who are specially qualified for the work of legislation either by their acquirements or their talents. Land and rank possess nearly four hundred Members of Parliament, literature and science some- where about nineteen. We do not want the proportions reversed, but we do want them very considerably altered. Here, then, is our field. for reform. It has not been our object at present to indicate remedies, but faults that need remedies. Those who say that no Reform Bill is needed—those who dread, with Lord Derby, the advance of Democracy—should peruse these lists, 'especially that which arranges our present Members in classes. It is facts like these that stimulate what is evil and dangerous in the Democracy ; and a Conservative of the true order can conserve what is valuable no better than by removing just causes for complaint. Circumstances have compelled the present Government to face the Reform question. They are pledged to it; and the country is quiet and unexcited, because it believes that pledge will be redeemed in letter and in spirit. Upon the hearti- ness and thoroughness of their work in. thiadirection, their main- tenance in office and in public confidence now hangs.
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