THE PROPOSED NEW REFORM BILL.

measures of enfranchisement, except as concessions to popular agitation.

occasion of a loyal and hearty welcome, which | Whigs, or the determined opponents of wide would perhaps have been more vociferous if it had been less sympathetic. Only by her presence in the house did her majesty resume her royal state. The robes lay on the throne beside which she stood, with downcast eyes, as the speech was read by the lord-chancellor. One passage in the speech pointed directly to parliamentary reform:-"I have directed that information should be procured in reference to the rights of voting in the election of members to serve in parliament for counties, cities, and boroughs. When that information is complete the attention of parliament will be called to the result thus obtained, with a view to such an improvement in the laws which regulate the rights of voting in the election of the House of Commons as may tend to strengthen our free institutions and conduce to the public welfare."

Not very exciting, this placid reference to an inquiry which ardent reformers thought should lead to a very considerable extension of the franchise and a careful redistribution of seats in accordance with equal representation and yet not only the opposition, but a large section of the supposed supporters of the government, assumed it to be untimely, if not unnecessary, unless for the purpose of securing a few concessions, chiefly in the direction of the borough franchise. Nor could it be maintained that any very significant demonstrations had been made outside parliament to obtain a definite scheme of reform. There was a widely-felt impression that the question would soon have to be considered, and there were several associations and not a few leaders willing to organize and carry on a regular movement for securing a measure which would satisfy a genuine demand; but the demand had not been made in the shape of distinct propositions, perhaps, for one reason among others, that advanced reformers felt little confidence in proposals likely to emanate from a government of which Earl Russell was the head and the Whigs a very influential element. The truth seemed to be that Earl Russell's government was not likely to go anything like far enough for the Liberals or Radicals, and a good deal too far for the cautious

The knowledge that this was the existing impression must have made the task of Mr. Gladstone a difficult one, when he had to concur in framing a measure, and to introduce it to parliament; for by that time he had, it may be supposed, gone far beyond the traditions of the Russell Liberal policy so far as regarded an extension of the popular privileges in elections of members to parliament. There was a certain wholeness in his character which forbade him from resting in partial developments, and hence, in departing from one stand-point to another which he saw before him, he had soon to change his boundaries on all sides in accordance with what was to him the evident consistency of their relations. It is no depreciation of him to say that he evidently did not, himself, realize the position that he would rapidly assume in relation to questions on which he might very well have thought he had already undergone a quite complete change of opinion. And though the reform bill which he had to propose did not, in the estimation of many, go far enough, it had in it those elements of thoroughness which were sufficient to gain for it the support of Mr. Bright-a support which,-when it was discovered that the opportunity of passing a measure of the kind was likely to be delayed, and perhaps lost by the continued apathy or indifference of those who professed to be the friends and advocates of political freedom,— rose into warm and enthusiastic remonstrance. The introduction of the bill was somewhat chill and constrained; but before it had been long debated, Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright had sustained its claims both in and out of parliament by oratory which they have probably seldom surpassed. Their energetic appeals, though they did not arouse sufficient determination to support and save the govern ment, stirred the country into action which compelled those who defeated the measure to reconstruct it with provisions which, if some of them were less satisfactory, were in some respects more inclusive. There must have been many people at that time who remem

THE NEW CABINET-W. E. FORSTER-G. J. GOSCHEN.

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bered Disraeli's saying of the Peelites that | parliament Mr. Forster was widely known "they had caught the Whigs bathing, and as an active intelligent magistrate, a zealous had stolen their clothes." In the reform bill and earnest philanthropist, and a politician of 1867 the Conservative government showed of widely Liberal principles and enlarged that, aided by something like an accident, views, and it has recently been made known they had tripped up Whigs and Liberals to- that during the Irish famine, when he was a gether, and had afterwards been obliged to young man, he was engaged alone and with disguise themselves in their clothes. indefatigable activity in visiting the remote distressed districts, many of them not easy of access, and taking measures to afford relief to the starving people. In 1859 he contested Leeds, but was defeated by Mr. Beecroft; but in 1861, when Mr. Titus Salt, of Saltaire, disgusted with parliamentary life, retired, Mr. Forster was returned without opposition for Bradford, where he had a large business as a worsted manufacturer. Mr. Forster, very soon after he entered the house, began to take part in the discussions, and speedily gained a reputation not only as a debater, but as an earnest, vigorous, and convincing speaker.

But to return to the opening of the session. The ministry was not regarded as one favourable to the advance of Liberalism. The advanced party were asking, Why was Bright left out of it? It had been rumoured that he was to be secretary for India, or president of the Board of Trade, while Mr. John Stuart Mill was to support the family tradition and conduct Indian affairs. No such appointments were made. Lord Clarendon succeeded Earl Russell in the foreign office, and the government remained with little alteration, except in the offices of under-secretary for the colonies and vice-president of the Board of Trade, Mr. Chichester Fortescue, the former undersecretary, having become Irish secretary. These two changes were not at the time of much apparent importance; but they became really significant as the introduction to offices, which gave no seat in the cabinet, to two men who have since had much to do, one with the financial, and the other with the social and political administration of the country. These two men were Mr. Forster and Mr. Goschen.

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Mr. William Edward Forster, member for Bradford, did not profess to be himself ". of the people falsely called Quakers," though he was the only son of William Forster, who was more than fifty years a minister of the Society of Friends, and died in Tennessee, whither he had gone on an anti-slavery mission. William Forster married the sister of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, the first baronet. The member for Bradford was born in 1818, and was therefore forty-eight years old when he took office in the ministry of 1866. He married Jane Martha, eldest daughter of the late Dr. Arnold, the celebrated master of Rugby School, and adopted all the children of one of Dr. Arnold's sons, who died in the prime of life, leaving his family but scantily provided for. Long before he came into

Mr. Forster had long been deemed a rising man. Mr. Cobden had from the first a high opinion of him, and thought that he would be certain to attain and keep a prominent position in the house.

The Right Honourable George Joachim Goschen, one of the members for the city of London, had risen rapidly in official life, for he was only in his thirty-fifth year; but he had a special talent for finance, which had been cultivated by commercial experience as a member of the well-known firm of Frühling, Goschen, & Co., foreign merchants and financiers, his connection with whom he relinquished on taking office in the government.

Mr. Goschen was educated at Rugby, and at Oriel College, Oxford, where he took his degree. He was first returned for London in 1863, and again, at the head of the poll, in 1865. Some years before, he had published a book on the theory of foreign exchanges, and almost immediately on entering the House of Commons he made a position for himself as an able speaker on finance and commercial legislation. Shortly after Earl Russell succeeded to the premiership Mr. Goschen was appointed vicepresident of the Board of Trade; but this office he had only held for a short time when he was transferred to the Duchy of Lancaster,

with a seat in the cabinet. It is generally | crisis was impending in a particular direction, understood that the rapid promotion of Mr. the statement which accompanied the budget Goschen was made at the instance of the was highly assuring. The chancellor of the exchancellor of the exchequer (Mr. Gladstone), chequer had not to announce a surplus of revwho, it is said, was desirous of having at his enue on the scale of the last three years, which back a man thoroughly conversant with finan- had reached an average of three millions and a cial affairs to help him in the discharge of the half; but he would still be able to make reduconerous duties of his office, to which had been tions not without interest. The estimated exadded the leadership of the House of Commons. penditure for the past year had been upwards of £66,000,000, but the actual expenditure was only £65,914,000. The revenue was £67,812,000, leaving a surplus of £1,898,000. The revenue had been £1,424,000 more than was calculated. The average increase in revenues since 1864 was about a million and a quarter per year. The loss caused by the reductions of last year had slightly exceeded the estimate. The exchequer balances had been reduced by unusual liquidations of debt. On the 31st of March, 1865, they were £7,691,000; and on the same date in 1866 they had fallen to £5,851,000. The total estimated expenditure of the coming year was £66,225,000, which, as compared with the expenditure of the previous year, showed an increase of £78,000. The total estimate of the revenue for the year would be £67,575,000, thus leaving a surplus of £1,350,000, which, but for the charges of the previous year, would have been quite £2,700,000.

The government also reckoned on the support of Mr. Stansfeld, a rising politician, on the side of Radicalism, who had held office in the admiralty under Lord Palmerston, but had resigned in consequence of having been charged with complicity in the plots of Mazzini—an accusation the only foundation for which was that he was a friend of the Italian patriot, to whom he had given pernaission to have letters addressed to his house, directed to Mr. Fiori, in order to avoid a possible repetition of post-office scrutiny. Mr. Stansfeld was, however, too able a man to be left out of party considerations.

The Duke of Argyle in the Lords was at that time scarcely of sufficient weight to count against some Tory advantages. But his ability was recognized, even though it was occasionally manifested in a manner which led men to resent his self-sufficiency rather than to yield to the arguments by which he upheld his representations. He was usually regarded rather as a clever, persistent debater, with a philosophical turn, than as a profound politician or an able statesman. He was one of the rising men of the day. And on the other side, in the House of Commons, was Sir Hugh Cairns, who had already made a considerable mark, and Mr. Gathorne Hardy, afterwards Lord Cranbrook.

Earl Russell's ministry, then, was not altogether such as would lead men to expect any large and inclusive measure of parliamentary reform, nor, as we have noted, had there been any definite and startling outcry for such a measure. It was felt that if there must be reform at all, it should go beyond the very cautious and sober lines of the intimation in the royal speech. The country was, on the whole, still so prosperous, that, though pressure was beginning to be felt, and a sharp, commercial

The effect of the commercial treaty with France had been to raise the export trade of that country from 58,500,000 francs to 141,000,000 francs. We had now concluded treaties with Austria and Belgium, Italy and the Zollverein on the same standard as that of France, no duty to exceed 25 per cent ad valorem on British goods. This necessitated changes in our own tariff, by which the duty on timber was repealed and the duty on wine in bottle or in wood was equalized. These remissions, together with the abolition of the duty on pepper, which would be a loss of £112,000 for the year, a reduction of the mileage duties on public conveyances from a penny to a farthing a mile, and a reduction of the scale of the license duty on post-horses, were all that could be proposed-and disposed of £560,000 out of a surplus of £1,350,000. The tea duties were to be renewed, and the