Supposing the proportion to be the same over the whole country, there would be above 150,000 houses in Scotland worth L.10 and upwards. 2. The same result is arrived at from a different process. There are, at an average, five persons to a family, therefore the population of 2,500,000 should, according to this rule, be lodged in 500,000 houses. Considering the rent which the poor pay for the most inconsiderable and wretched dwellings, we are confident that, out of 500,000 houses, at least 150,000 will turn out of the value of L.10 yearly and upwards. Every body knows that there is hardly a gentleman's servant in Edinburgh, possessing a house of his own, who does not inhabit a house of this value; and so well was this understood, that there was hardly one of that class who did not sign the Reform petition. But suppose that one-fifth of the inhabited houses, or 100,000, only are worth L.10 a-year, what a prodigious mass of voters must this bring up to the poll in all the country districts! How are the landed interest to withstand this sudden influx of electors, over whom they have no sort of influence? It is perfectly notorious, and no one in Scotland disputes the fact, that the member for Edinburghshire will be returned by the feuars in Dalkeith, Gilmerton, and the suburbs of the metropolis; that of Lanark by the feuars of Airdrie, Hamilton, and the Barony parish of Glasgow; and all the other counties in the same manner. Now the class in whom the county representation is thus vested, are not only those over whom the landlords have no influence, but they are those whose interests are adverse to those of the cultivators of the soil. This is a most important consideration. The feuars and shopkeepers, in the villages and small towns, have no sort of sympathy with the landward district which surrounds them, it is with the great cities that they are connected; and accordingly they all have forwarded, on different occasions, petitions against the corn bill. Now what is to come of the landed interest, when they are thus delivered over to their enemies?-when the very representation intended to sup port their interests are returned by the preponderating multitude of their opponents? But the supporters of the bill rest on the clause giving a right of voting to tenants, under a nineteen years' lease, of farms to the value of L.50 a-year or upwards, as sufficient to counterbalance the extraordinary addition thus made to the weight of the manufacturers. To understand how completely fallacious this view is, it is necessary to refer to a fact perfectly notorious in Scotland, but not generally known to the south of the Tweed, that, in no part of the country are such farms as, under the act, would create a vote, now at all common. The reason is, that, in the remote and ill-cultivated districts, where the farmers have no capital, and agriculture is carried on by little farmers, or crofters, as they are called, the farms are chiefly under that sum; and that in the better quarters, the tenantry, panic-struck by the excessive variations of price and general depression which have prevailed for the last fifteen years, will not take a farm for a longer period than seven, or at most nine years. There is no practical agriculturist in Scotland who is not aware of that fact. To illustrate the probable working of the bill, it is sufficient to observe, that an examination was recently made of the circumstances of twelve of the principal estates in Mid-Lothian, comprising, among others, those of the Duke of Buccleuch, the Earl of Morton, Mr Ramsay of Barnton, and many others, with a view to discover what number of voters would be qualified on their properties. The valued rent of the whole taken together was L.47,000 a-year; and, as this was the rate fixed above a century ago, it may safely be inferred, that the real rent must be at least L.90,000 a-year at this time. The number of tenants qualified to vote on these great properties, taken together, was only 72; being the number of voters whom L.720 a-year of house property in the villages would produce. That is, L.90,000 a-year of landed property produces the same number of voters as L.720 a-year of house owners. Supposing that 18 voters are constituted among the proprietors of the land, to add to the 72 among their tenants, the sum total will be 90 votes for L.90,000 a-year landed, and 72 for L.720 ayear of house property. In other words, the weight given to the house is an hundred times as great as that awarded to the landed property, even after they have mustered their whole qualified tenantry to their support! It is superfluous to say more on this point. Nothing can be clearer, than that the landed interest is, under these clauses, utterly merged in the preponderating influence of the house owners, and that henceforth they will lie entirely at the mercy of the populace, composing an adverse class in society. In towns, the provisions of the bill are, if possible, still more alarming. The clause on this subject is as follows: "That every person shall be entitled to be registered, as herein directed, and thereafter to vote at elections for any of the boroughs or towns, or districts of boroughs, herein-before mentioned, who, when he claims to be registered, shall have been, for six months immediately preceding, and shall then be in the actual personal occupancy, either as proprietor or as tenant, upon a written title of possession, of a dwellinghouse within the limits of the borough or town, of the annual value of ten pounds: Provided always that it shall be sufficient proof of the said value, that the house so possessed is actually rented at, and has truly paid that or a larger sum, or stands rated to the king's or to local taxes at not less than the said sum, and has truly paid all such rates and taxes." We do not hesitate to affirm, that this clause is only a step removed from universal suffrage. The important points to be here observed are, 1. That the right of voting is given to the tenant as well as owner of a L.10 house. 2. That the value is to be taken by the rating in the King's books, or the rent actually paid for the subject. We do not know what class this clause may bring up to the polls in England; but in Scotland nothing is more certain, than that a large proportion of it will be the most profligate and venal set of men in existence. Take, for example, Glasgow, where the labours of the accurate and intelligent Mr Cleland have furnished a mass of statistical information unparalleled in any other part of the island. It appears, from the tables collected by this indefatigable compiler, that every fourteenth house in Glasgow is a public-house; while, in London, the proportion is only one in fifty-six. This deplorable fact was publicly noticed by the Lord JusticeClerk at his address to the Glasgow assize in autumn 1826, as the prin cipal source of the prodigious increase of crime in its depraved population. But it bears now upon a more important matter even than the increase of human delinquency. Supposing that the proportion formerly stated holds good, that onefifth of the inhabited houses are of the value of L.10 a-year and upwards, and if one-fourteenth of the whole are public-houses, it follows that the proportion of houses creating a freehold qualification, which are publichouses, must be five-fourteenths, or nearly one-third of the whole. may fairly be assumed that, in a great town like Glasgow, every publichouse is rented at least at L.10 ayear; so that they will all confer a freehold qualification. It But this is not all. The brothels in Glasgow are, at least, half as numerous as the public-houses; there is no person practically acquainted with the condition of the lower orders, either from the punishment of crime, or the relief of sickness, who is not aware of that fact. In truth, where the lower classes of the houses are filled with whisky shops, the upper stories are generally tenanted by lodgers of this infamous description. And that they are generally above a rental of L.10 a-year is certain. Supposing, therefore, the brothels to be as numerous as public-houses, the electors of Glasgow will stand thus: Inhabited houses, 2850 1425 In other words, 4275 electors out of 8,000, will be ale and brothel-house keepers in other words, the most dissolute and profligate of the community. Such is the constituency into whose hands the Reform Bill will deliver the country. In small boroughs, although the morals are not so depraved as in those of great sinks of corruption, the class of electors will be almost as dangerous. The L.10 householders in the small manufacturing towns, are in great part imbued with the most democratic spirit. Destitute of property; having nothing to lose by convulsion; paying their rent by means of rooms let to lodgers; feeding incessantly on the revolutionary press, many of them are precisely the class who, in all ages, have been the most dangerous in manufacturing states. Their habits in Airdrie, Kirkintilloch, Paisley, and Kilmarnock, on the west in Montrose, Forfar, and Dundee, on the east, are such as to give no hope of a rational exercise of the elective franchise. Spending their surplus wages too frequently in debauchery; assembling in evening clubs, for the perusal of the radical newspapers; interrupting draughts of sedition, by potations of spirits; a large proportion of the manufacturing classes in the manufacturing boroughs of Scotland, have fallen as low in the scale of being as any class of men of whom history makes mention. There are doubtless many worthy and virtuous citizens among this body; but, in general measures, the character and habits of the majority must be considered. There is not in the world a more intelligent, prudent, and well-doing peasantry than the rural labourers over the whole country: there is not a more ignorant, profligate, self-sufficient class than a large proportion of its inferior shopkeepers, and manufacturing operatives. There is no man practically acquainted with the condition of the urban population of Scotland, that will not corroborate these remarks. Most of all is it known to the supreme criminal and local Judges, and all whose professional duties have rendered them conversant with the progress of crime. It is high time that the common delusion on the subject should be dispelled, and that the real character of a great proportion of the electors, to whom it is proposed to deliver over the country, should be generally known. Their habits may be judged of by a single fact. From 10 to 20,000 persons in Glasgow get drunk every Saturday evening: they are drunk or drink ing all Saturday night and Sunday, and the greater part of Monday, and they return to their work pale, squalid, and exhausted, on Tuesday morning. This is not matter of speculation. The experiment has been tried in all the principal towns of Scotland, of police commissioners chosen by the suffrage of all the L.10 householders; and it is well known both who constitute the immense majority at such elections, and what is the descrip tion of candidates who are returned. The elections are so completely overpowered by the low householders, that few respectable citizens think of using their suffrage; and the commissioners chosen in this manner, are of such a character, that, with the exception of a few patriotic individuals, who, for the public good, undertake the duty, it is a matter of extreme difficulty to get any gentleman to belong to the establishment. Ask any householder of Edinburgh or Glasgow, and he will give this account of the state of the police elections in these cities; and it is a matter of perfect horror to its respectable inhabitants, to have the elections of Parliament placed on the same footing. Even in the small rural boroughs, such as Perth, Inverness, Elgin, Haddington, &c. the character of the lower orders, though incomparably higher than the manufacturing towns, is by no means such as to render their exercise of the elective franchise either safe or desirable. The ancient prudence and sagacity of the Scotch character, is there fast giving way to those two grand corrupters of humanity, the love of whisky and the love of power. Instead of assembling in the evening for family worship in separate families, or reading books of rational information, or religious instruction, their leisure hours and spare wages are chiefly devoted to the ale-house and the newspapers. Little clubs of three or four assemble nightly in every village, to read aloud the radical press. Their minds necessarily become tainted by the mass of infidelity, sedition, abuse, and ignorant assertion which it contains. That fatal measure, more calamitous to Scotland than all the burdens of the war, which Mr M'Culloch and the Edinburgh Review persuaded the late administration to adopt, the reduction of the duties on whisky, has done more to corrupt them than centuries of civilisation. The radical publisher and the distiller thrive in the midst of the progressive ruin of public morals. The Bible is fast yielding to the daily press: Information has vanished before intoxication: allied to sedition on the one hand, and infidelity on the other, education is rapidly undermining the once stable foundation of Scottish virtue. The daily press, servilely fawning on the career of revolution, tells us none of these things. The radical journals are loud in the praise of their principal purchasers, the working classes. Their violence is excused or concealed; their wisdom, virtue, and patriotism, the theme of universal applause. How exactly do these violent acts, coupled with this servile adulation, remind us of the sinister commencement of the revolutionary servility of the French journals. These facts are so contrary to what once was the character of the Scotch urbane, and what still is the character of its rural population, that, however well known to all practically acquainted with the lower classes in the Scotch cities, it is not likely to obtain general credit with those in whose hands its destinies are now placed. It shall be our important duty, from time to time, to state such facts on this subject, as will convince the most incredulous, that our statements are not overcharged. The L.50 votes given to the tenant ry are neither a boon nor a privilege to that class. Hitherto it has been the great advantage of that merito. rious body, that it is withdrawn from all collision with the landlords; and that the interests of agriculture are not injured by electioneering operations on the part of the owners of the soil. It has been already mentioned, that, from the universal aver sion to long leases in all the improved and improving districts, the number of votes falling to the agricultural class under this clause will be very inconsiderable. In the rich and highly cultivated district of East Lothian there will be hardly 160 votes. But it may easily be anticipated, that when the landlords find themselves beat down and outvoted at all the elections by the houseowners in the counties, they will be compelled, in their own defence, to multiply votes on their estates. The evil of nominal freehold qualifications, now so loudly complained of, will be renewed on a far greater scale, and with more pernicious effect. Ten-pound houseowners will be multiplied like the ten-pound freeholders in Ireland, to counterbalance the ruinous influence of the feuars and small shopkeepers. Little feus and houses will be increased for electioneering purposes, and the land ultimately overspread with an indigent beggarly population, as in that unhappy country. Nor will the condition of the tenantry be less injured by their unhappy connexion with political contests. Whatever standard is ultimately fixed on for a freehold quali fication, farms of that description will be augmented for the purpose of influence. How adverse soever to the increase of agriculture, how destructive soever to the independence of the farmer, they will be generally adopted. The landlords will find that it is the only means of averting destruction. In this way, the farmers, now exclusively occupied in their multifarious and important rural labours, will be involved in the tempestuous sea of politics. Leases will be shortened or lengthened, not according to the interest of the cultivator or the state of prices, but the subsisting law in regard to freehold qualifications; and the fatal contest will begin, now so fiercely raging in the sister island, between private interest and political passion. The popular demagogues, totally regardless as they generally are of the real interests of the people, will urge them to resist the hateful domination of the owners of the soil; the good understanding and kindly feeling, now so generally established between them, will be destroyed; reckless ambition will triumph as in Ireland by the sacrifice of private happiness; and a contested election, preceded by disgraceful bribery, will be followed by the melancholy spectacle of ejected tenants, weeping families, and destitute emigrants. The tenantry of Scotland, distin guished above almost every other class by their good sense and sagacity, and uninfected as yet by the fatal contagion of great cities, have clearly perceived these truths. Notwithstanding all the efforts of administration and of the radical press, they have hardly anywhere responded to the call for petitions. The agricultural class, it may with confidence be affirmed, are adverse to the conferring of the elective franchise on themselves. They know well what it has done for Ireland; they see in the multitude of Irish poor by whom they are overwhelmed, the dismal consequences of the extension of political agitation to the rural districts. Nothing can be conceived more disastrous than the effects of shaking, by political convulsion, the rural tenantry. Who formed the protection of the state during the radical times in 1820, when the standard of revolt was displayed in Bridgeton, and 100,000 weavers in the west were ready to rise in open revolt? The yeomanry of the agricultural counties, who turned out with an alacrity in defence of their country, which could not have been exceeded by regular troops trained to assemble daily at their trumpet call. If this class, too, are to be involved in political agitation, what bulwark remains to protect the cause of order from the increasing ambition of the manufacturing classes? Let it not be supposed, that by their remote situation, secluded life, and tranquil labours, the cultivators of the soil are necessarily withdrawn from the fever of democratic passion. The example of Ireland proves the reverse. What is the situation of the remote and agricultural county of Clare? An insurgent peasantry, landlords driven into the cities to save their lives, the soil turned up and destroyed by rebels; twelve cold-blooded murders perpetrated in open day within a few weeks by wretches still at large among their kindred peasantry; jurymen who cannot venture to meet at the assizes; witnesses not daring to come forward from the terror of death. What has produced this deplorable, this unexampled state of things? The subdivision of farms, and increase of paupers, consequent upon the freeholds of the tenantry; the agitation of politics; the election of O'Connell. Let it not be supposed that the Scottish character, if exposed to the influence of the same causes, is any proof against similar desolating political frenzy. The agitation and fanaticism of the Covenant proves the reverse. If we would seek for a parallel to the distracted state of the Irish tenantry, we must recur to the ruinous divisions of this country, after the great rebellion had stirred up the passions of the rural population. Slow to immerse in political contests, the Scottish peasantry,when once roused, either by political or religious fanaticism, are the last in the world to lay it down. The old leaven of the covenant-the memory of Bothwell Brig-the preachings at Ayr Moss, still work in the bosoms of the western peasantry. If their plunge into the sea of politics once fairly rouses and exasperates the tenantry of Scotland, the fatal poison will not, in all probability, be expelled for two centuries. "The Americans," it has been observed by a most competent observer, "will never rival England, either in agriculture or manufactures. The never-ending agitation of politicsthe incessant turmoil of elections, fills the heads of the people from one year's end to another. Instead of attending to their business,they are constantly going to the corners of streets to put pebbles into ballot-boxes." * Such is the result of democratic institutions upon a great scale. The consequences of this ruinous distraction of thought, are not as yet felt in that great continent, from the boundless field for industry and facility of obtaining subsistence which prevails. But they may be anticipated, when employments begin to be filled up, and the pressure for food begins. But what would they be in an old country such as Scotland, with all employments filled up, with the pressure of domestic taxation, and the rivalry of foreign competition? They may easily be anticipatedthey are the same which, in all ages, have followed the uncalled-for extension of political power to the people-diminished employmentincreasing distress-the destruction of the first class of innovators by the Captain Hall, |