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Opposition, and I think it might be surmounted. It is, as I shall soon shew, as essential for the Opposition leaders as for the Ministers to be independent and impartial between the divisions of the community; and, of course, it is equally essential that they should enter the House by other means than popular election. They are generally too well known to admit of mistake. Suppose a power were vested in any proper quarter, for example, with the independent and non-political part of the judges, to name at every election a fixed number of them, they being, as an indispensable condition, the heads of the great Whig or the great Tory party; and then, that this number should dispose of twenty seats. This would give the Opposition no more really than it now possesses; there would be no boroughmongers or bribery; and I think abuse in every way might be prevented. The seats would be disposed of under responsibility to Parliament.

I believe the feeling is general, that Ministers ought to have seats in virtue of office; in truth, it is a matter of clear right to them, if they ought to be in the House. Let it be remembered, that the Opposition is on public grounds quite as necessary as the Ministry-that the seats of the former will be on the popular side, while those of the latter will be on that of power-that the Opposition seats will not only neutralize the Cabinet ones, but be in all cases a clear gain to the people-that the Opposition leaders can only, in the body, gain regular admission into the House by some such means--and that they toil most laboriously in the public service without stipend : let all this be remembered, and every man who is willing to give free admission to Ministers, will be still more so to give it to the heads of Opposition.

This would be equivalent to be stowing ten close boroughs on each side of the House of Commons-to enabling each side to elect twenty members as its leaders. It would interfere with the vote of no man, and leave every county and borough perfectly independent. Virtually, the occupiers of the free seats would be elected by the community at large. The Whig leaders are practically

chosen by the Whig part of the population, and the Tory ones by the Tory part; both would therefore be really chosen by the community to fill and dispose of the seats for its benefit. The seats could not on either side be gained and retained by any thing save unrestrained, unbiassed popular choice; therefore they would not infringe in the least on popular election. Of course, they would be wholly free from the objections which attach to the close borough ones. Half the population spontaneously, enthusiastically, and on talent and desert alone, selects certain men as its political leaders; it declares, that they ought not only to be in Parliament, but to possess the Cabinet; and am I to be told that there is in this no nationalsuffrage-no popular election? Am I to believe that these men ought to be excluded Parliament, if they cannot severally enter it by means of the prejudiced, interested, corrupt votes of some county or borough? I must not be so deluded. If these men were suffered to enter the House of Commons in the way I have described, they would really be more independently, impartially, and popularly elected,-they would really possess a more diversified, pure, numerous, popular, and unexceptionable constituency-than its

other members.

If the weaker interests were suffered to have representatives in the manner I have mentioned, this would secure to the House a proper portion of the other kind of talent. Bankers, merchants, &c. &c., would be sure of gaining seats gratuitously on the score of ability and intelligence. This ought to be suffered for qualifying the House to do its duty, if even equal representation be disregarded.

Let me now look at the plan with reference to its provisions for making the general decisions of the House of Commons independent and impartial.

The great end of free government is to enable the majority of rank, talent, intelligence, and property, as well as numbers, to rule the minority in matters of opinion and expediency; but to place both on a level in matters of right and privilege: it is to make the rights and privileges

of the minority wholly sacred and secure against the majority-to protect the former from the latter. The House of Commons exists as a means of gaining such government; and of course, in forming it, the great end of representation is to make it perfectly impartial, just, and equitable towards all, and between the majority and minority-to render it the effectual protector of the latter against the former.

It follows, that, if the majority be suffered to prevent the minority from being duly represented in the House, and to govern the decisions of the latter, there can be no equa lity of right and privilege-there can be no freedom; a tyranny must exist of the most guilty and destructive character.

The representative of an interest or class must, in the nature of things, be a partial, prejudiced, interested man; he offers himself to his constituents, because he holds their opinions; he perhaps belongs to them; and he is sent to Parliament to advocate their separate interests against those of the rest of the community. In matters which affect all equally, for example, foreign policy, the criminal laws, &c., there is nothing to incite one part of the people to seek the injury of the other; but matters of unequal operation, such as taxes, laws which affect trade, property, labour, &c., impel the various divisions of the community to continually seek the spoliation and ruin of each other. Such a representative must be in most things a mere partisan, not more anxious to promote the interests of one division, than to ruin those of another.

Compose the House wholly of such men, and it must of necessity be in the majority grossly partial and solicitous on mercenary, private grounds, to injure, rob, and distress a vast part of the people. Give the majority to those who are hostile to taxes, and it will plunder the public creditor-give it to those who wish to abolish the Corn Law, and it will ruin the landed interest-give it to those who are hostile to the church, and it will overthrow her.

While, therefore, it is essential for the House to contain the representatives of every interest and class, and to be composed of them to the

extent requisite for causing it to pay the most prompt attention to complaint and grievance, and examine carefully the calls of popular feeling; it is equally essential, that, in its deliberative, ruling part, it should be composed of totally different men— men who represent only the community in the aggregate. It is not more necessary that a large part of the House should represent the se parate interests and classes, than it is that a large part should NOT do

So.

The old system stands on this, but its provisions are very defective. Its independent seats have in a large degree fallen into the hands of improper electors; they can be obtained by unfit men, and nothing is attached to them to impel their occupiers to labour zealously for the general good alone.

But what is the new plan? It labours to compose the House solely of partial, interested representatives of separate interests and classes; to such an intolerable extreme does it carry this, that, in order to make Ministers such representatives, it disqualifies them for discharging their official duties. The evil would be the less, if it gave equal representation; because the many kinds of the warring partisans would in some degree neutralize their powers of mischief. But in its most unjust disposal of representation, it confines it mainly to interests and classes which are sure to use it in the most destructive manner to the general weal. It divides the electors into two great parties-the one consisting in the vast majority of small and middling town housekeepers, who are everywhere the same in interest and feeling; and the other of the agriculturists; and it expressly makes them the democratic and aristocratic parties. It involves them in a war of extermination, first on interest as the trading and agricultural bodies; and then on feeling, privilege, and power, as the democracy and aristocracy.

The representatives must of necessity be what the electors are. The House of Commons therefore must be divided into the trading and democratic party, on the one hand, and the agricultural and aristocratic one, on the other.

A popular form of government, in

every other country where it has been fully tried, has led to public ruin and slavery. Why? Because it produced war between poor and rich, the democracy and aristocracy. The same cause must in any nation produce the same effect. The fratricidal strife must be between physical power, aided by minister, legislator, and the suspension or perversion of legal law, against moral; and victory must be with the party of destruction. The British Constitution has long, in glorious contrast, been the parent of every benefit, because it has protected us from the baleful war. We have had, not democrats and aristocrats, but Whigs and Tories-names as ridiculous and unmeaning as heart could desire, but invaluable for being so. Instead of arraying class against class, they have united high and low; and have only compounded parties from equal portions of each to struggle for general advantage.

If there be one thing which in a free country ought to be prevented above every other, it is this war of class-if there be one thing which ought to be guarded against above every other in the formation of such a body as the House of Commons, it is the entrance into it of this war. Light up the latter in the Legislature, and it must feed the conflagration in every quarter until all is consumed.

That which ought to be so especially guarded against, is to be especially produced: the House of Commons is to be remodelled, that it may be filled with the infuriated combatants of democracy and aristocracy, and made an engine for converting the whole population into such combatants. Whigs and Tories are to be turned out of it and destroyed; all who might moderate, disarm, or keep apart the hostile bodies, are to be scrupulously excluded. Ministers must be democrats or aristocrats, the Opposition leaders must be the same, and the struggles of public men for office must be in the most powerful party struggles to confiscate, plunder, and enslave-to overturn institutions and ruin the empire.

This is to be the case when war between the democracy and aristocracy has already placed every kind of property in jeopardy, dragged the empire to the threshold of revolution, and produced every conceivable

proof that the King, Ministry, and Legislature, ought to leave nothing undone for its suppression. Human blindness and infirmity never before exhibited such an error.

Is it impossible to reform the House of Commons without composing it wholly of interested conflicting partisans, and making the most powerful division of it consist of men anxious to destroy the property of the funded, landed, colonial, and various other interests, and to pull down the aristocracy, with every thing else that supports the monarchy? If it be, reform must only suffer this House to detail grievances and utter speeches; it must take away its power of judgment and lawmaking. But it is not impossible.

The public weal imperiously demands that Ministers shall be wholly free from influence and bias, and of course shall not represent any interest or class. It demands the same touching the Opposition leaders. The latter, as well as Ministers, have to labour for all parts of the people with the utmost impartiality, and they must occupy office in case of change. Every public man who seeks office, ought to be strictly preserved from the control or influence of separate interests and classes. Place the heads of the two great parties in the House, by some such means as I have named, to represent the whole community, but not any parts, and how will it operate? Reply shall be furnished by the history of the past.

Hitherto the voice, control, and direction of the House, have been possessed by men of talent and honour, who have not been sent into it by popular election, and who have had deep personal interest in combining the aristocracy and democracy. They have really been put into it to contend with each other for the Cabinet,-and their hope of success, emolument, dignity, and fame, has laid in labouring to gain equal favour with the aristocracy and democracy

keep them in harmony-and confine the party divisions of the House to contention for general good, without reference to class and interest. From this, if elections have been decided by war between aristocrat and democrat, the representatives have not been able to carry it into the House; on entering the latter, they

have found it engaged in a totally different war, and if they have attempted to introduce that of class, they have had its talent, eloquence, and party power turned against them. The Opposition has had the same interest as the Ministry in opposing them. Thus representatives, in spite of creed and ground of election, have been compelled to leave aristocratic and democratic distinctions at the door of the House, and to be in it merely Whigs and Tories, placing all classes on an equality.

This has always had the best effect in keeping the destructive strife of class from elections and the community at large. The eloquence and example of the House have been constantly directed against such strife, and its division into Whig and Tory has compelled candidates and electors to divide themselves in the same

manner.

Let it be observed, that these invaluable benefits have been drawn in a pre-eminent degree from the talent, number, and independence, of the Opposition leaders. By them, principally at elections, and in the House, the low democratic party has been restrained from possessing ability and power. The new plan must prohibit Whigs and Tories, save in the exception, from leading the Opposition, and substitute for them furious democrats, dependent for seats, and every thing, on their advocacy of the worst doctrines.

Make then, I say, the heads of the two great constitutional parties the representatives only of the whole people in the body-the impartial tribunal to listen to the representatives of, and decide between, the contending parts. To aid them, give the weaker interests representatives, as I have recommended. The latter will be in a large degree neutral between the aristocracy and democracy, and they will operate to temper, restrain, and connect both. To make this independent part of the House more powerful, and form the proper balance in itself, give four members each to the Universities, and a certain number to people of independent fortune only. To confine the votes in a town to such people, is a thing to be avoided; but if it were done in two or three towns, and a district jointly, without taking away what the new

plan is to give, it would be free from objection. Suppose that in two or three towns, and a surrounding district, such inhabitants as are not in any business or profession, and possess a yearly income of not less than one hundred pounds, arising from the rent of land and houses, or the interest of money, were permitted to elect two representatives; the towns and district being to possess in addition what the plan of Ministers is to bestow. This would make representation more perfect, it would, in truth, give it to a most valuable part of the people which otherwise will have none, and it would make no invidious distinction; the smaller housekeepers and freeholders would still have their representatives.

What I on the whole advise is this-give twenty members to each side of the House of Commons, in all forty, who shall be independent of both the aristocracy and democracy separately considered, and incited by personal interest to labour impartially for their union and mutual benefit. To make them so, let them represent not this class or that, but the whole population; therefore let them be selected, not by this class or that, but really by the community in the aggregate. Make them the great teachers and guides of the House; and to do this, let them be men of the first talent, eloquence, information, and experience. Then place in the House a considerable number of men able and experienced in commercial matters, and add to them a number more to be chosen only by unconnected individuals of independent property; let the whole be as far as possible independent and disinterested between Whig and Tory, Democrat and Aristocrat, and the representatives of great masses of property, intelligence, and virtue alone. Having composed the House in this manner to the extent requisite for making it an independent, impartial, and wise judge, let the remainder of it consist of the representativesthe counsel-the interested partisans of the great clashing interests and divisions.

I maintain, that if the House be not formed in some such manner, it will be utterly incapable of discharging its duties-it will be the reverse of what it was ever intended to be-it

will be a source of robbery, confis cation, bondage, and public ruin.

Is there any thing in it adverse to the just demands of the reformers? No. They crave the destruction of the aristocratic close boroughs, and I surrender them: they call for the abolition of the rotten democratic boroughs, and I consent; they ask for equal representation, and I join them; they insist that every member shall be chosen by the people, and by an unexceptionable constituency, I also insist on the same. But when they assert that there shall be unequal representation-that great bodies of the people, and vast masses of property, shall have no represent atives that the people in the ag gregate shall be unrepresented-and that the House shall consist solely of the interested partisans of the great warring divisions of the people, and be wholly disabled for acting wisely, impartially, and uprightly-I protest against it as the extreme of injustice. I make my protest in the name of the people, for the sake of their rights, as well as interests.

But, Ministers plead, the wish of the people must be complied with. If this be true, without reference to the character of the wish, why have a House of Commons, or any other Legislature than public meetings? When it is in error, the duty of Ministers is to alter the wish, but not institutions; the people must be instructed by the Executive, but not obeyed.

Another vicious feature in the plan is, it gives the franchise to the town occupier, and refuses it to the country one. In a town, the man who pays a rent of ten pounds, and does not possess twenty, is to be an elector; but in the country, the farmer who pays a rent of five hundred or one thousand pounds, and employs a capital of ten thousand, is to have no vote, unless he have a lease for twenty-one years. Leases of this length are so rare, at least among English farmers, that only exceptions amidst the latter will have votes from occupancy. The operation will be this in country towns and villages, small tradesmen and labourers will have votes, but people of independent property, statesmen, and the majority of substantial farmers, will have none. While the plan pretends to give the

franchise to the middle classes, it in the country withholds it from them. The officiating clergy must, to a large extent, have no vote.

The plan gives the freehold vote to leasehold property. Now the owner of such property has only an interest in it of limited duration, and if it consist of buildings, the ground on which they stand gives such vote to another individual. Thus a single house may give the franchise to three individuals, viz. the owner of it, the owner of the ground, and the occupier; it may give the county franchise to two. The possessor of money on mortgage, or in the funds, has a perpetual interest in it, therefore he has a far greater right to the vote than the possessor of leasehold buildings. The gross injustice committed here, has nothing to palliate it. Without it, the leaseholders as a class will be, in occupancy and power over tenants, perhaps more efficiently represented than any other. The effects will be of the worst kind; it will operate to cause agricultural members to be elected by the ene mies of agriculture.

Want of local knowledge will not permit me to speak of Scotland, and the same want will only suffer me to mention Ireland, with reference to Protestant and Catholic. On this point the plan bears the most atrocious character.

Every one knows that the Protestants form a small minority, and of course that they must have no members, save by accident, if numbers only are to govern the elections. Yet, the members are to be chosen by numbers; therefore, if the Protestants do not happen to possess the majority in some place or other, they must have no representatives. All is left to chance. The Catholics are rapidly obtaining the county members, and by this plan they will at once get many of the town ones: if they only multiply in the same ratio as the Protestants, they must continually gain greatly on the latter in every place. Thus the plan gives the Catholics most of the members in the first moment, and ensures them early possession of the remainder.

I once more say, that there can be no just and equal representation, if every class and interest be not directly represented, without reference

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