II.: Adequacy of the Reform Bill to the Wants of the Nation.

Two considerations appear to have principally influenced Ministers in framing the Reform Bill; first, to introduce a measure commensurate with the wishes of sincere and rational reformers; and, secondly, to introduce a measure which should not involve greater changes in established institutions than were essential to the accomplishment of this end. Had they introduced a measure less extensive than it is, it would have been unsatisfactory—it would, certainly, have been no resting-place—and would have left the national grievance precisely in its original state. Had they introduced a measure more extensive, it would have had to encounter increased opposition, which opposition, though it could not possibly have averted an efficient parliamentary reform, might have caused its postponement, and, in the intervening struggle, involved us in those internal calamities which every well-wisher to his country is anxious to avoid.

With great ability Ministers have pursued a medium course; if there has been any leaning contrary to popular expectation we candidly confess it has been to the democratic rather than the aristocratic side, and for this bent the people will know how to be thankful. By the extinction of the nomination boroughs they have, with a bold and dexterous hand, cut out the cancer of the Constitution, and by enfranchising the great towns they have conceded that political controul to the people which every intelligent community ought to possess over the government under which they live, and on whose administration their happiness so greatly depends.

Judicious as we humbly conceive the Reform Bill to be, happily as it has steered through the middle passage, well-adapted as it is to the times—to the expectations it has to satisfy—the interests to reconcile—and the prejudices to conciliate; still it has failed to give universal satisfaction, and is opposed by two opposite and very different classes of antagonists—by one class who conceive the Bill concedes too much, and by another who conceive it does not concede enough. We shall submit a few observations to each of these denominations, not in the vain hope that we can add to their previous knowledge, but simply with the view of recalling to their recollection considerations which, in our opinion, will shew that the apprehensions of one party and the non-expectations of the other are alike unfounded, or greatly exaggerated.

We shall first address ourselves, as in courtesy bound to do, to my lords Harrowby, Wharncliffe, Wellington, Winchilsea, and those who constitute what may be termed the “Alarmists.” We may premise to these noble persons, in the first place, that if the Reform Bill be an evil, it is an evil wholly unavoidable; we have reached such a crisis in national affairs, that either the bill, or a measure equally effective with the bill, must necessarily be passed, and that, therefore, it behoves them to submit to it, as one of these dispensations of Providence to which we must be resigned, however painful to be borne. It is true they may flatter themselves a measure less perilous would have done; in this we can assure them they are mistaken; not an atom less than the bill gives would have satisfied us, neither would it have satisfied that numerous and influential class with which we conceive we hold community of interest and sentiment.

But the great spectre which haunts the imaginations of the Alarmists is that the Bill involves consequences of direful import, that it is only the first of a series of constitutional changes, which will follow in rapid succession, and ultimately sweep away the Order, the Throne, the Altar, and even property itself. These are dreadful apprehensions, but more worthy of the dowagers of Grosvenor-Square than of statesmen seated in the highest chamber of legislation. What the people of England require is not alteration in the frame of the constitution, nor in its constituent parts. All they require is to live under cheap and enlightened institutions—institutions which shall preserve them from unnecessary wars—institutions which shall not take more from the produce of industry, neither under the pretext of religion, nor of law, nor of civil government, than is necessary to the efficient administration of public affairs—institutions which shall purge off the foul opprobrium of men claiming honour and worship from their fellow citizens, though holding lucrative offices without employment, and pensions without desert—institutions which shall not be supported by the offerings of want, but the redundancies of the rich—institutions, in short, that shall assimilate with the altered mind and altered circumstances of the community. It is not the form of the government the people wish changed, but its better administration; and what is there in this, we ask, that any just or wise man need to dread or protest against?

The apprehension of indefinite change is unwarranted by all previous experience. The country has been constantly undergoing great changes without altering the status of the Aristocracy. The Reformation was a great change, but when made it stopt, and did not subvert the Peerage. The rise of the House of Commons was a great change; so were the abolition of feudal tenures in the reign of Charles the Second—the revolution of 1688—the Septennial Act—the Scotch and Irish unions—the publication of the debates—the Catholic relief act—the separation of the American colonies—the rise of the Bank of England and East-India Company: all these were great changes, but the Order buffetted through these storms, and not only outlived them, but, positively, attained a higher, more palmy, and enviable state of existence than before. The English government has been a perpetual menstruum of changes. The king, as we have seen in the last section, at first engrossed all political authority; he afterwards shared it with the clergy—next with the nobility—next with the House of Commons—next, indirectly, with the middle classes—and, ultimately, perhaps, he may share it with the labouring classes, when circumstances render them sufficiently independent and intelligent for the beneficial exercise of it; and this last we deem the utmost subdivision and diffusion of political power. In all this efflux there is nothing alarming; it has been the work of two thousand years, and is the natural progress of events which it is vain to try to stop. As classes rise in wealth and intelligence they must necessarily be incorporated in the government. There is no help for it; and it is just to be so. But because men seek what is just and useful, are we to infer they aim at something further? because they seek the abolition of an oppressive and impolitic impost, called tithe, is it to be inferred, as sir R. Peel most fatuously insinuated, they seek the abolition of rent? The boundary which mostly limits the demands of mankind is the just and expedient: beyond that, it is against the general feeling of human nature to trespass.

But it is alleged dangerous opinions are abroad—opinions menacing the security of property and all social institutions. There are the followers of Robert Owen, of Thomas Paine, of Joseph Spence, of Parson Irving, and the “Lady of the Rotunda.” This is all true, and “ ’tis a a pity ’tis true.” But when was it otherwise? Men’s minds have bubbles in them as “the earth and air have.” In the civil wars of the Commonwealth there were the Levellers and Republicans, there were Fifth Monarchy men and Millennium men, who thought the period had arrived when Jesus was to descend and reign a thousand years. The fact is, we are at the crisis of transition, we are about to undergo a great change; and such periods are now, and always have been, the very Carnival of conceits, theories, and fancies. But does any sane person believe that the vast rational mass of English society, set in its solid frame-work of a thousand years’ duration, can be endangered by such puny assailants? We shall not utter another word on the subject. Let us have the renovated constitution, based on the general interest, and all the system mongers, who with their new-born idea vainly think to subvert a social edifice which, with its habits and usages, is the result of ages of experience, will disappear with the excitement that gave them birth, and be no more heard of, except for fire-side laughter; certainly not to be mentioned in the street, much less alluded to in the legislature.

Having tried to allay the fears of the Alarmists, we shall next turn to the honest portion of the radicals, who fancy they will reap no benefit from the Reform Bill, by its not including Universal Suffrage, or a scheme of suffrage co-extensive with taxation, which last, we believe, is the opinion of the M.P. for Preston, and which in this land of imposts would give the franchise to every person who eats and drinks, whether male or female, child or adult.

Before alluding, however, to the Bill, let us advert to the general principles that ought to govern the elective qualification about which extremely vague notions are entertained. It is a question of time and place, and circumstance, not of theory. A right of suffrage adapted to France or the United States may be unsuited to England. In no country is the franchise exercised without some condition being annexed. In America the slave-population, which forms so large a portion of the inhabitants, is entirely excluded; and, if we recollect Mr. Cobbett rightly, in none of the States of the Union is the suffrage exercised unaccompanied with residence or other qualification in the elector. Were it otherwise, it would not be a conclusive argument for the adoption of a similar scheme of representation in the United Kingdom. In the cheap and universal circulation of newspapers—in the independent circumstances of the industrious—and in the absence of that mass of vagrancy, poverty, and destitution, which is found among ourselves, the Americans possess advantages for the exercise of political power which unhappily do not exist in England.

Take another illustration of the elective qualification, in which a higher standard of suffrage would be sufficiently protective of the people than would be adequate to the same purpose in England. In France, the number of electors amount to 250,000; but the electors who returned the Chamber of Deputies of 1830, which so nobly withstood the encroachments of the Bourbons, did not exceed 85,000. In England, the number of electors who actually voted in the general election of 1830, has been estimated at 87,000, which exceeds the number of electors in France under the old system: but mark the difference in the two systems of representation. What class, interest, or section of society do the English electors represent? None, not a single social element, either of numbers, intelligence, or property. Omitting county freeholders and metropolitan electors, three-fourths of the remaining body of the electors of England are of the labouring classes in the lowest state of indigence, non-resident, and the hireling tools of the candidates. Contrast these with the conditions under which the French constituency exercise their suffrages. First, the ballot excludes corruption and intimidation; and every elector, according to his judgment, may be supposed to vote for the man best qualified to advance the general interests: he can have no other motive; his only grounds for preferring one person to another must be public, not personal to himself, like those of the English elector. Secondly, the French electors comprise nearly the entire proprietary and intelligence of the community; they consist of householders, retailers, shopkeepers, and of the classes more opulent than these: hence they embody, either directly, or through dependence on the working classes, the chief interests of the community. These are not the only points of contrast between the two countries: in France there is no richly endowed Church nor Aristocracy to make head against; there are no interests like the Bank, or the East-India company, or West-India planters, or brewers, or old chartered corporations to counterpoise. The constitution of society is essentially democratic; there is no monied aristocracy, nor landed interest: having no primogeniture or entail laws, property is more equally divided. Hence it is, that a much smaller body of electors in France would adequately represent and sustain the interests of the community, than would be adequate to similar purposes in England: for it must be borne in mind, that the excellence of any system of representation does not consist in the number of voters, but in the unbiassed and intelligent exercise of their suffrages, and in their being sufficiently numerous to touch on and constitute a fair and aliquot proportion of every social interest. After duly considering these points, the reader will not be at a loss to account for the different results presented in the history of the French chamber of deputies and the English house of commons, though both deriving their origin from an elective basis of similar extent, but differently constituted, differently exercised, and with widely different interests to contend against.

The examples we have mentioned of America and France must, we apprehend, demonstrate that the elective qualification cannot be determined by any general law, but must be governed by the circumstances of communities—the division of property—the diffusion of intelligence—and the independent condition of the people.

So far as abstract right is concerned, no good reason can be alleged why every one should not share in the making of laws to which he is amenable. The person is not less precious than property; and laws which affect the security of the former are certainly not less important to every individual than those which affect the security of the latter. It is not, therefore, residence, householdership, nor the payment of taxes, but legal responsibility which prescribes the strictly equitable limit to the right of suffrage.

But the admission of such a principle is clearly incompatible with any practicable form of government: it would entitle all, with scarcely any exception, to participate in legislation, it would embrace females as well as males; all minors would be included, of whatever age, provided they were judicially responsible: in short, none would be disqualified, except the insane and infants of so tender age, that they are unable to distinguish right from wrong. The introduction of such an unlimited scheme of suffrage, no one can seriously contemplate. Still, if we are asked, why we would adopt any other principle of exclusion; why disfranchise women in preference to men, or minors to majors; why we would allow a person to vote at the precise age of twenty-one, and not at twenty or eighteen; we confess, in answer to these inquiries, we can only give one reply, namely, that expediency, not strict justice, dictates their exclusion. Universal suffrage is as much governed by expediency as any other scheme; for in this plan some classes are excluded, so that the difference is in degree not in principle.

We are thus compelled to resort to the only principle by which political questions must be invariably decided. They must be determined, not on any abstract view of justice, but general advantage. It is not by reverting to rights, or, more correctly, powers appertaining to man in a natural state, that we can ascertain his civil immunities; we can only look to the general good; or, as Mr. Bentham significantly terms it, “the greatest happiness of the greatest number, for the longest period of time.”

Upon this principle we exclude minors from voting, because their interests may be presumed to be indentified with those of their parents; we exclude females from voting, because their interests are merged in those of their husbands, fathers, or brothers. How much farther the principle of exclusion should be carried, is a practical question only—one of utility, not theory. Whether the right of suffrage should be universal, or limited to householders, or to rent-payers of £10 or £20 a year, or to those assessed to the poor-rate, or direct taxes, is a consideration which must be decided by ascertaining which would be most conducive to public happiness. The end of just government is the equitable and adequate protection of all interests; and provided this is attained, the object for which the suffrage is exercised becomes amply secured. The task of legislation is a part of the labour of society; and it is only a clumsily contrived social machinery—approaching to the organization of the savage state—if it demand the participation and exertion of every individual.

This we think is sufficient to show that no condition of suffrage is of universal application, and adapted to all times and places. For further proof we may inquire what would be the tendency of a scheme of universal suffrage, aided by the ballot, in Spain and Portugal. It would, evidently, revive the inquisition; increase and perpetuate the domination of the priesthood; confirm the despotisms of Don Miguel and Don Ferdinand; and strengthen all interests opposed to liberal ideas, to the developement of internal resources, and the promotion of the prosperity of the Peninsula. Universal suffrage and the ballot would operate in a similar manner in Ireland. There the people are so lamentably ignorant as to be entirely at the mercy of a fanatical priesthood, who pillage them without mercy, under the pretext of saying masses for the repose of the dead! The condition of Ireland in the nineteenth century—to the eternal reproach of our Oligarchical government—is a living type of the state of England anterior to the Reformation. And what, we ask, would universal suffrage have done for us at that era? Would it have broken the power of the monks, or of the feudal barons? Certainly not; it would have perpetuated vassalage; and had such a regime continued, the body of the people would have been in no better condition at this day than that of the barbarians of Russia, who, like droves of cattle, have trodden under foot the liberties of the heroic Poles.

Having said thus much on the general tendency of Universal Suffrage, we may be permitted to say a few words on its practicability. In the existing state of opinion it would be wholly unattainable by peaceable means; nothing but absolute force, nothing short of a convulsive movement, subversive of every thing, would accomplish it; and then it would not subsist a twelvemonth without leading to Anarchy and Despotism. The middling classes, with hardly an exception, are indisposed to such a sweeping measure; but without the co-operation of the middling classes no political reform can be obtained. In France the encroachments of the Bourbons were resisted, and they were, finally, expelled from the soil they had polluted, by the co-operation of the industrious orders. It is only by a similar united effort that the Church and Aristocracy of this country can be successfully resisted. What was it that rendered the efforts of the Reformers abortive in 1817 and 1818? Upwards of a million and a half of petitioners prayed for parliamentary reform, yet this numerical array was powerless of effect, and disappeared like water on a sandy bed. The cause of this memorable failure may be readily found in the fact that the people were not seconded by any portion of the proprietary; the consequences of the revolutionary wars had not penetrated deep enough into the substance of society: the case is now altered, and it is because it is altered that the Boroughmongers are disposed to concession. But though the middling classes are as fully bent on parliamentary reform as any other section of society, it is such a reform as would restore, not destroy.

Before concluding, we would beg to inquire whether by universal suffrage it is meant the floating population of towns should be eligible to vote? Vagrants, Irish emigrants, and persons of that description, for instance. We apprehend the idea has not been sufficiently analyzed; if it had, we feel convinced a scheme so indefinite could have few advocates, except among such mock reformers as Harlequin Sheridan, who professed to be the advocate of universal suffrage, because he deemed it utterly unattainable, and an excellent device for creating divisions, by which every plan of public improvement might be ridiculed and frustrated. Our reasons for preferring a more limited scheme of suffrage are practical; they are that such limitation renders reform attainable, while a more indefinite scheme defeats it; and the fact of keeping house of a certain rental, though it confers no natural right, indicates a class of persons settled in life, of mature age and fixed abode, and that such qualification is adequate to the protection of all interests, conciliates the timid, and preserves the suffrage itself from degradation. Lastly, let it be borne in mind that persons are not excluded from the suffrage on the ground of right, on the pretext that they have no stake, no interest in the country; but simply because the exercise of it would be unprofitable to themselves and the community, and as useless as two persons holding a pen in place of one.

Leaving the subject of universal suffrage, let us come to the positive benefits likely to result to the people from the Reform Bill. It is unnecessary to premise we do not anticipate from it the extirpation of all social evils; it will not avert the calamities, unhappily so frequent—of commercial vicissitudes and unemployed industry and capital; these, and other difficulties in our internal state, the best of governments can only mitigate when aided by the co-operative intelligence of the community. But thought it will not bring down the golden age, it will accomplish the main object Reformers have been anxious to attain.

In the first place, by the extinction of the nomination boroughs, a mass of legislative power is at once transferred from the Aristocracy to the people. This is a positive gain, without any countervailing loss. Not a particle of democracy previously existing in the Constitution is extinguished by the Bill. As before observed, three-fourths of the voters under the old system (leaving out the Counties and Metropolis) were of the working classes; they will continue voters under the new, and less exposed to bribery and intimidation. Thus there is an addition without subtraction from popular power.

An entirely new influence will be thrown into parliament—an influence emanating from the people and identified with the people in interest, sentiment, and opinion. This influence will not be measured by the additional number of members returned for the metropolis and enfranchised towns, but by the masses of population they will represent and of which they will be the organs and representatives. The ten-pound qualification is not an uniform qualification; it is one thing in London and another in the country; but both in London and the country it includes the working classes, or those chiefly dependent on the working classes. On whom are the Middle Orders, the class of shopkeepers, the butchers, bakers, hatters, grocers, inn-keepers, and alehouse-keepers chiefly dependent? Why, on the working people, to be sure. Their profits accrue more from wages than rents or tithe, or any other source of income. Whatever tends to lessen wages will lessen their gains; whatever tends to impair the condition of the labourer and operative, will impair their own. They will, in consequence, exercise the elective franchise, under an influence favourable to the poor, not to the rich.

The ten-pound qualification has been adopted not as a test of property, but of fitness for the elective function. The object sought was not to create a class of voters representing the wealth of the community, but its virtues, intelligence, and public spirit. How was this to be done? It was impossible to do in this case as is done in schools and colleges—go through the country and submit every individual to personal examination. Some external sign—some general rule must be adopted; the ten-pound qualification is one; it is not the best perhaps; it is not infallible; it neither demonstrates invariably moral or intellectual fitness; but it shews, at least, the elector is not a minor, nor a beggar, nor a vagrant.

That it is not a property-qualification may be instanced in this. In England there are thousands of persons ineligible to the proposed franchise, though in possession of millions of income—incomes derived from the funds, from colonial property, from the copyrights of books, from government annuities, from professions, trades, and other sources; many of these are persons in opulent circumstances; they are a class of people whom it might have been thought the Government would have been desirous to attach to its interest by granting them the suffrage: yet a great portion of them, not being occupiers of houses, from dislike to the trouble of housekeeping or other motive, will be totally without political power in the State; they will have no share in making militia laws, nor laws of any other description, though bound to obey them; they will be as void of political rights as the man who has not a sixpence, nor a rag to cover him, nor a shed wherein to lay his head. If the new qualification be unjust, it is, at least, impartially so; it does not strike one class and leave another unscotched; it does not exclude all the poor, and incorporate all the rich: it embraces a part of every grade of society and omits a part; and in this, in our opinion, consists the great excellence of the scheme; for, by means thereof, not a single interest is left without legislative protection.

Very erroneous notions are abroad as to the greater popular power the people would derive from the adoption of the household or universal suffrage scheme in preference to the ten-pound qualification. Facts are stubborn things, and we shall avail ourselves of a few from the mass of returns to parliament, and of which a digest will be found at the end of this article.

Owing to the great wealth, intelligence, and population, concentrated in the metropolis, the character of the Reform Bill greatly depends on its application to this division of the kingdom. The capital comprises one-tenth of the population of England; it contains 116,279 qualifying tenements, while through the whole kingdom there are only 378,786. But as few houses in London are tenanted at a less rent than £10 a-year, the household plan may be considered in operation in this great influential district of the empire. In some towns, household suffrage and universal suffrage nearly coincide. Thus, in Bishop’s Castle there are of household votes 344, of universal suffrage votes 345. This is a small borough; but take some of the large ones, Southwark for instance, with a population of 77,799; here the household voters are 13,187, the universal suffrage voters 15,559. In Hull are 5,350 household, and 6,591 universal suffrage electors; in Ipswich the proportions are 3,412 to 4,090; King’s Lynn 2,323 to 2,674; Knaresborough 976 to 1,045; Lancaster 1,803 to 2,028; Leicester 6,627 to 8,102; Ludlow 1,006 to 1,050; Lichfield 1,151 to 1,126; Norwich 11,031 to 12,219. It is unnecessary to proceed; other and as striking examples of coincidence will be found on reference to our Tables. The conclusion to be drawn is important. Universal suffrage is not a bugbear to excite alarm; nor is it of such general concernment as to be worth contending for by the people.

We have been repeatedly told that the constituency to be created by the Bill is too limited—that it gives the suffrage to one man and leaves ten without it. Look to the Tables, and let facts speak. In Birmingham the proportion between the male adult population in possession of the franchise and those without it will be 1 to 3, in Greenwich 1 to 2, in Lambeth 1 to 11/2, and in Mary-le-bone 1 to 1. In no case, with one or two exceptions, does the proportion exceed 1 to 4.

On the whole, we conclude the £10 qualification is a happy medium. Had it been higher the elective basis would have been too narrow. As it is, it touches on the different schemes of suffrage which have been proposed: it embraces every class and excludes none. We should object to a plan of representation which embodied only one interest, whatever interest it might be; for instance, we should object to the constitution of a House of Commons which represented only the working classes or the middle classes, just as much as we object to the constitution of that which exists, because it represents only the interests of the Aristocracy.