These expressions of opinion are impor- the very fact that they have found it netant in my eyes as casting light upon cessary to preserve silence as regards the the sentiments which have been enunciat- particulars of those things which they look ed by the hon. Member for Westminster forward to with so much complaisance conduring this debate. The hon. Gentleman vinces me that, so far from being pleased, had been asked what reforms he would the majority of the House would recoil introduce to the legislation of the country. from what they anticipate. So far as my He was told that it was illogical to ask vote is concerned, I will not vote for this for a change in the House of Commons kind of legislation; I will not speculate in unless he could point to a change in our the dark; I will not follow a guide who legislation as likely to ensue on that Re- tells me that he is going into an unexplored form. The hon. Member for Westminster country, but declines to inform me at least made a very pregnant reply. He said it as to its nature or the probable results would not be a practical proceeding to of the expedition, and who will give me tell the present House of Commons what no other information than that he has delegislation would result from the adoption stroyed bridges behind him and burnt his of this measure. Now, Sir, knowing the boats. We have been threatened alike by opinions entertained by the hon. Gentle- the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor man the Member for Westminster, as ex- of the Exchequer and by the hon. Mempressed in his writings, upon the subject ber for Birmingham. We have been told of property and land knowing that he that if we resist this Bill we shall discredit regards the landowners as servants of the our party permanently, and the working State, and as men who may be discarded classes will never vote for those who reat any moment, I confess that I regard fused to give them the suffrage. I disdain with the greatest apprehension the con- to look upon such considerations at a cealment of the objects with which the juncture of this constitutional importance. new Parliament is to deal. But on what- We have been told to be wise, and wise ever side you regard this measure, you in time. I know of only one thing that find it beset with concealment. The right is truly wise at such a time as this, and hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the that is to have courage to vote honestly. Exchequer will not tell us of what con- Whatever may happen to our party, it stituencies this new Parliament is to be is clear that the Government is offering composed, and the hon. Member for West- an indignity to the House of Commons by minster will not tell us what measures this the course they are pursuing; it is atnew Parliament is to pass. No, nor will tempting to break and bind down our inhe even tell us what measures he desires dependence; it is attempting to force us it should pass. There appears to be some- to vote for a Bill of the nature and effect thing extremely ingenious in the leger- of which we have no knowledge upon demain of modern statemanship which, which we can depend, and therefore it with a singular want of concealment and seems to me that whatever the consereticence, exposes the very machinery by quences may be, our first duty to our which we are to be deceived. The Go- country and to ourselves is clear, and that vernment asks us simply to vote for this is to resist the Bill to the utmost. Bill, and transfer our power to persons of whom it tells us nothing; and the hon. Member for Westminster tells us to transfer our power to a body which will pass measures of which he will tell us nothing. I feel certain that whenever there is this concealment there is something to conceal. I am quite sure that if the Chancellor of the Exchequer could tell us of schedules which would recommend his Bill to the House, he would have told us of them long ago; and I am quite sure that if the hon. Member for Westminster could have named any measures to be passed in a Reformed Parliament which would have recommended this Bill to the House, he would have named them long ago. But CAPTAIN GROSVENOR: Sir, the noble Lord who has just sat down has been elo quent and incisive, but he has not been persuasive at least he has not persuaded me; for I do not feel able now, any more than I did before he rose, conscientiously to vote for the Amendment which is before the House; but although I cannot do this, it would ill become me either to disparage the intentions of its author, or to impugn the motives of hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House whose view of their political obligations is at variance with mine; and although it will be difficult for me to refrain from adverting to that which has fallen from them, it is to hon. Gentlemen opposite in particular that I wish to ad dress myself. They for the most part have taste, as I thought, to the emotion exhibited candidly pointed, by the arguments which by Earl Russell upon the compulsory withthey have used, to the fact that it is not drawal of that measure, and he said that wholly, that it is not chiefly, the import- although the Chancellor of the Exchequer ance of the Amendment which they could not be expected to weep-and I am uphold, but the principles of the Bill which sure I do not know why not-some other they oppose. Sir, the noble Lord the Member of the Administration might have Member for King's Lynn must be taken as been found to occupy that humiliating a partial exception to that rule. He cer- position. Sir, I have yet to learn that tainly did argue very comprehensively in manly tears wrung forth by strong emotion. favour of the Amendment, and I cannot are humiliating to him that shed them; help thinking that no happier thought ever but if the hon. Gentleman thinks so, can struck the mind of his party than that he wonder that the Government, having which prompted them to place him in the once witnessed that humiliation, are anxious van of the battle; for ever since he spoke by every means in their power to avoid hon. Gentlemen opposite, without attempt- its recurrence? There was one more ing to enforce or to illustrate his reason- remark in the hon. Gentleman's speech ing, have been enabled either at the com- which I confess struck me as somewhat mencement, or at the close of their philip- strange-he sneered at the virgin affection pics against the Bill, to brandish those of new Members for Reform, attributing arguments victoriously in our faces written it to their political inexperience, and to upon the original paper, tied up with the their present immunity from sacrifice. original string, and labelled " unanswer- But, Sir, I never heard before that virgin able." Sir, I am disposed to admit that affection is less valuable than any other. the arguments of the noble Lord, in so far I did not quite understand what he meant as they embrace a theory, have not been by our immunity from sacrifice; but I do completely answered. I will go a step think it rather hard he should have arrived further, and admit that up to that point at the conclusion that those of us who they are unanswerable. I believe there never had seats in Parliament before have are very few Members in this House who necessarily spent our time in total ignorwould not have preferred to deal with re-ance, or in total blindness to the history distribution in connection with an extension of their country, or to the politics of the of the franchise. I believe the right hon. period; and I can only imagine, as he Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exche- mentioned those two individuals, that it is quer himself would have preferred that in the antecedents of his colleague and of course if he could have seen his way to mine that he finds grounds for such a conany practical result; but may I ask what clusion. Sir, upon a former occasion when reason the Government had to suppose I had the honour and the privilege of adthat a comprehensive measure would be dressing this House this discussion was in more successful now than it was in the an elementary, and perhaps I might say in year 1860 ? The hon. Gentleman the a tentative state. It has now assumed the Member for Lambeth (Mr. Doulton) in a practical form of a good old-fashioned speech which he made a few days ago, party contest, waged on the one side for a from which I understood that he would judicious extension, on the other for a vote for the Amendment, though I thought monopoly of electoral rights; and, in saythe arguments which he used ought to have ing this, I particularly wish not to be induced him to vote for the Bill, referred understood to impute selfish motives to to the fact that the Bill of 1860 was hon. Gentlemen opposite. If I were so inbaffled, not so much by hon. Gentlemen clined, I might very fairly express my opposite, as by the obstructiveness of hon. surprise that they are arrayed against us Gentlemen on this side of the House. Can this afternoon in such a phalanx of comhe wonder, then, that the Government, pact hostility; for they have been assured deeply impressed with the importance of upon the highest authority, upon authority legislating immediately upon this subject, no less than that of the right hon. Gentleshould have pursued that course which man the Member for Calne, that if this they deemed most likely to ensure them, Bill passes into law the effect of it will be not only against the hostility of their to relieve the Liberal Benches of their opponents, but also against the lukewarm-accustomed occupants, and to oppress ness of their supporters. The hon. Gentle- those opposite with an unwonted crowd. man proceeded to allude, with questionable Perhaps they do not believe the right hon. [Second Reading-Eighth Night. Gentleman because he sits on this side of the House; but I think I can venture to explain that to their satisfaction, for when he speaks he not unnaturally prefers, as a matter of prospect, the smiles of the new love to the frowns of the old. But, Sir, sound or unsound, I assume that hon. Gentlemen opposite would not be swayed by such an argument as this. I entirely disclaim any intention of imputing selfish motives to them; and in alluding to the nature of the contest I only wished to call attention to the fact, that whereas the object of the one side is to give, it is the object of the other to retain-and to retain what? I do not say a right, I will not say a trust, for these are debatable expressions, what I think I fairly may say, without any fear of contradiction, is a privilege which a portion of their fellow-countrymen have earned by patience, by culture, and by integrity, and why is this privilege to be retained? Is it because the constitution of this House is so perfect that more patience, culture, and integrity, brought to bear upon the election of its Members cannot hope to increase that perfection? Or is it because the present constituencies are so faultless that more of these qualities infused among them cannot hope to improve such an excellent state of things? Or is it because constitutional monarchy can only exist within certain limits traced in the year 1832 by men wise in their generation -but in what a generation? One that had never read a penny paper worth perusing; one that knew little or nothing of iron roads as a means of communication; one that had never dreamed of electricity as a vehicle for thought. Reasoning like this, Sir, would argue an amount of bigotry which I should be sorry to impute to hon. Gentlemen opposite. I have already assumed that they are not selfish; I now assume that they are not bigoted. Why, then, do they oppose this Bill? I suppose it is because they are patriotic; but I must add, with very erroneous notions of what patriotism is. I, for one, cannot call them patriots, because they entertain alarms which the only possible testexperience of the past-points out to be fallacious. I, for one, cannot call them patriots, because they think they see the spirit of democracy keeping guard while this Bill lies upon the table of the House. Surely, Sir, hon. Gentlemen are in the dark, and that is why they think they see a spirit. If they will but turn the light on a little stronger, that which they take for a spirit will assume the honest, palpable, familiar form of the British artizan; and I, for one, cannot call them patriots if they think that the British Constitution, which of all Constitutions alone has stood the test of time, is so feeble in its nature, and so delicate in its fabric, as to crumble into pieces at his touch. But, Sir, the opposition of hon. Gentlemen to this Bill touches something more than their patriotism-it also touches their consistency. But of this I do not complain; and if further consideration induced them to think the promises they had made through their leader in this House unwise, I think they were quite right to retract them. But let it be for them to promise and to retract; let it be for us who have made the same promises, and who think their fulfilment both wise and expedient, to look to it as a matter of public honesty. Sir, this question of public honesty is one which I do not think ought to be lightly dealt with in this House; and yet I have heard it mentioned in these debates as if it had little signification, and still less importance. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Huntingdon, in a speech which he recently delivered, drew a distinction between the personal and the political honesty of Her Majesty's advisers, saying that for the one he had a very profound respect, for the other none at all. I confess this seemed to me a very unnatural severance; but granting that it could be made, was it not with their political rather than with their personal honour that the right hon. Gentleman was concerned, and if he really thought the Members of the Government were men of no political integrity, was he doing his duty in discussing this Amendment at all? Ought he not, as soon as he had formed that impression, to have risen in his place and cast a direct vote of censure in the teeth of those unworthy Ministers. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman proceeded at considerable length to discuss the point of honour as involved in this measure, and as affecting the Government; it is no business of mine to follow him through the course of argument which he used, and I am sure I can leave it to no more impartial person than himself, in his cooler moments, to decide whether the line which he then adopted was dignified, generous, or fair. I only wished to give the House an instance of the way in which public honour has been dealt with in connection with responsible Ministers; and now may I ask, have pri vate Members fared any better? It has been repeatedly insinuated, it has sometimes been well-nigh asserted in the course of these debates, that hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House were going to vote for this Bill, in reckless indifference to the interests of their country on account of pledges which they had given upon the hustings; and upon this part of the subject the right hon. Member for Calne laid down a very curious proposition, that proposition has been referred to more than once in debate, and will hardly be necessary for me to repeat it now, but right hon. Gentlemen attempted to enforce it by quoting two lines from The Idylls of the King, and great I should think must have been the surprise of the poet, if he read the right hon. Gentleman's speech, to discover the moral those lines were called upon to point. Perhaps, however, being a man of imagination, he may have discovered some faint parallel between Launcelot and the right hon. Gentleman, for Launcelot, as we know, proved faithless to pledges which he had previously accepted-he did not however abandon them in the interest of his country, but in those which, under the misguidance of passion, he deemed to be his own. I said the parallel was faint, and so it is, for I venture to think that the right hon. Gentleman in deserting the cause of Reform has promoted neither the interests of his country nor his own. I do not propose, Sir, to enter upon the wide field of argument connected with the effect which a further infusion of the popular element into our Constitution might be supposed to have upon our foreign and financial policy; first, because as the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Exeter said, such arguments can only rest upon the merest conjecture; and secondly, because I have already trespassed too long upon the attention of this House; but I hope the House will bear with me for a few moments longer, because if I sat down now, I should be open to the accusation of having neglected a form, the constant observance of which by preceding speakers leads me to conclude that it is one of courtesy and etiquette. Hon. Gentlemen will understand what I mean, they will kindly correct me if I am wrong; but I have not as yet made any allusion to the hon. Member for Birmingham. That hon. Gentleman, in a speech which he made upon the first reading of this Bill, which, as a matter of course was able, and which also, though not, perhaps, so much as a matter of course was temperate, alluded to the accident of violence as possible, nay probable, if hon. Gentlemen opposite did not moderate their tone and their views in regard to the working classes; and, Sir, I was sorry he should have introduced such a threat into debate, because as an argument, it is the very last in the world to have any effect upon hon. Gentlemen opposite. They are wedded partly by conviction, partly by inheritance, partly I venture to think by prejudice, to a domestic policy of timidity and alarm; but the very last thing from which they would recoil is personal inconvenience, or personal danger, however imminent; the very last thing to which they are likely to listen, is the trumpet of menace, however certain in its sound. One word more, Sir, and that also will have reference to a very distinguished Member of this House. It was my misfortune to be absent from the House when the right hon. Baronet the Member for Hertfordshire spoke in this debate; but in the year 1859, I had the eminent good fortune to hear upon this question, and from his lips, one of the most eloquent speeches I suppose that ever was delivered within these walls, and he concluded that speech with some very remarkable words which I think I shall quote correctly from memory, for they have ever since remained engraven on my mind. The right hon. Gentleman, after stating to the House that the working classes had in it no better friend than himself, that none was readier than he to invest them with such privileges as they were fitted to enjoy, asked this House to hesitate before it placed the property and intelligence of this country at the mercy of impatient poverty and uninstructed numbers." Sir, those eloquent words were spoken in defence of Lord Derby's Reform Bill, a Bill which contained no provision for the extension of the Borough Franchise, and in which every one under the ten-pounder was included in one sweeping clause of impatient poverty and uninstructed numbers; but, Sir, since that time we have had an illustration such as never occurred before in any age or in any country, that poverty can be patient even amid cruel and bitter privations, that numbers are sufficiently instructed to ap. preciate the action of cause upon effect even in matters affecting their daily sus tenance; and I, in my turn, honourably and respectfully ask this House to hesitate before it rejects the principle of this Bill [Second Reading-Eighth Night. at the risk of throwing this people into a state of uneasiness, aye, and of discontent at the risk, too, of putting a stop for an indefinite period to that brilliant system of commerce and finance which in the recent past has proved of such unmeasureable advantage, and the continuance of which for the future is of such vital importance as regards the power, as regards the resources, as regards the happiness of this great country. lant Gentleman had given the working classes such a character that a man should be made of stone who did not fall in love with them. He spoke of them as possessing culture, patience, and integrity. When, however, the gallant Member for Westminster said that the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn had omitted a great deal in his speech, he listened for an argument; but although he listened with great patience, he did not hear a single argument in favour of the second reading of the Bill, and against the Amendment of the noble Earl. What was the speech of the hon. and gallant Gentleman? It was full of denunciation and admonition to Members on the Opposition side of the House. They were told that they would not listen to menaces; that they were extremely good, that they were extremely honourable, that they were extremely thick headed and stupid, and incapable of appreciating sound arguments MR. BUTLER JOHNSTONE said, that he had listened with attention to the eloquent address of the hon. and gallant Gentleman who had just resumed his seat, and observed his strictures on the able and convincing address of the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn (Lord Stanley). When, however, he should have taken the trouble to cut out the speech of the hon. and gallant Memher, and wrap it up and tie it round in paper, he confessed that he should docket it in a different manner from that such, of course, as were offered by the in which the speech of the noble Lord was hon. and gallant Gentleman himself. But docketed. The hon. and gallant Member for when the House heard the hon. and gallant Westminster had borrowed an argument Gentleman, they must have felt that his from the speech of his hon. Colleague arguments were impalpable as a spirit. (Mr. J. Stuart Mill), who confessed that The House had been told that the working a great part of the speech of the noble classes ought to have a share in the repreLord was unanswerable. Now the hon. sentation, but that was a proposition which and gallant Gentleman said the same thing was not controverted by many Gentlemen -that a great deal of the speech was un- in that House. There were very many answerable. He further expressed himself Gentlemen on his side of the House who somewhat to this effect :-"I am going to agreed that it would be very desirable to answer the rest; to show you how much introduce a class of men who would fairly the noble Lord has omitted, how much fur- represent the working classes in the exercise ther he ought to have gone, and that though of the franchise; but they wanted to know a large part of the noble Lord's speech was what share the working classes were to have? true, a larger part was untrue. You must Now, the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman not think I am a novice; I have studied the Chancellor of the Exchequer afforded the history of my country, I have studied no solution of that problem. The right the politics of the day, and, fortified with hon. Gentleman gave them a problem to this historic knowledge, and the penny solve in which there was an x-an unpress so much read by the working classes, known quantity, which the House had to I shall point out to the noble Lord where make out for themselves. Let the right his logical argument fails. But I am going hon. Gentleman tell them what the unto do more, said the hon. and gallant known quantity was, and they could work Gentleman, "I am going to make a con- the problem out; but the House of Comfession of faith of a rather tender nature, mons was not to know what was the value for it is the confession of virgin affection; of the x. They had been told that the and you must not be surprised if it calls object was to catch their votes, and the forth emotion in my mind. Even if I should right hon. Gentleman the President of the shed tears there is nothing unmanly in Board of Trade had avowed that the inthat." He (Mr. Butler-Johnstone) had tention of the Government was to drive the tried to turn a strong light on the object of House into a corner. But the House did this virgin affection, and what had he found not desire to be caught unawares, or to be it to be? Why, the hon. and gallant Gen- driven into a corner. The House of Comtleman had fallen in love with the working mons had a right to know the facts of the classes of the country. There need be no case and ought not to be told to take a leap wonder at that, because the hon. and gal-in the dark. For his part he (Mr. Butler |