384 TITHE BILL PASSED. [1832. measures should come into immediate effect: they are by no means answerable for the delay which has arisen; and I think the noble marquis (Westmeath), if he has attended to what has been going forward in the other House, must admit that no effort was spared by the promoters of these bills to get them carried through the present session. That design was only abandoned at the instance of members of the House of Commons connected with that part of the United Kingdom. I can assure this House, that it was only in deference to the views of those honourable gentlemen, that the measure was given up.' Lord Lansdowne forgot that Mr. Stanley made a declaration on the second night of the debate which arose on the introduction of his plan, that distinctly relieved the opposition from the responsibility attendant upon arresting the passing of these measures. He said 'On a former occasion, I stated that it was my intention to lay before the House the whole as one general connected plan, which undoubtedly the government had in view; but I stated at the same time that they did not consider that it would be necessary to press all the bills through their different stages in the course of the present session. I will fairly say to the honourable gentleman (Mr. Hume), that looking to the difficulties in which this question is involved, and to the present period of the session, I do not think it would be possible to pass more than the first bill." It suited Lord Lansdowne's 1 Mirror of Parliament, vol. iv. p. 3100. This was said on the 10th of July. 1832.] REFORM BILL FOR SCOTLAND. 385 purpose to make a contrary statement, and he made it. The fact, however, was, that the ministry were divided upon the question of the appropriation of the tithe when collected, and were by no means unanimous in their approval of the scheme by which a host of ecclesiastical corporations were to be created for the purpose of dealing with the property resulting from the composition and commutation of the tithes. The first great disruption of the Whig ministry was brought about by this difference of opinion, and the catastrophe that afterwards occurred, was foreshadowed by their early dissension on this delicate question. The bill received the royal assent on the last day of the session. The Lord Advocate Jeffery, who had, as already stated, introduced the Scottish Reform Bill on January 19th, moved the second reading of that measure on May 21st. When explaining the proposed provisions of the Reform Bill for Scotland during the former session, on the 23rd of September, 1831, the Lord Advocate thus described its scope and purpose: 'I must announce at once,' he said, 'that its principle is, that the old system is to be regarded as utterly incurable, and not to be patched or mended, but utterly destroyed and abandoned. We cannot de cimate its abuses, or cut off its vicious excesses: its essence and its principle is abuse, and there is nothing that is not vicious about it. I will then at once declare, that the principle of our bill-and I glory in being able to make the avowal-is, that no shred or 386 PROVISIONS EXPLAINED. [1832. rag, no jot or tittle, of the old abominations shall remain and why, in Heaven's name, should they, for a day, an hour, a moment!'' And certainly a more preposterous system of representation never existed than that which had so long prevailed in Scotland. The right of voting was, in fact, separated from the possession and property of the land, and was held for the most part by absentees, who did not own one foot of land in the places for which they chose representatives. The number of voters, besides, for the whole kingdom of Scotland did not amount to 5000, so that the entire country was, in truth, a close borough. 2 And yet this system was stoutly defended, and by Sir Robert Peel was deemed of great use, because it thus Mirror of Parliament, 1831, Sess. 2, vol. iii. p. 2373. 2 A ludicrous instance of a Scotch popular election was given by the Lord Advocate. To illustrate the system,' he said, ‘I will mention the case of one election for that county (Argyle) which took place long within the memory of man. When the day of election came, there was no person to attend but one, and he was the sheriff, or returning officer. This respectable person being also a freeholder, first read the writ to the meeting as sheriff; he then constituted the meeting by calling over the roll, duly answered to his own name, and faithfully took down the sederunt. After this, he put the vote for the election of præses and clerk, and reported himself duly elected as præses; as such præses he read over the minutes of the last meeting and confirmed them: finally, he put the candidate in nomination, and seconded his own proposal; he then gravely took the vote by calling over the roll a second time, and having given his vote for his nominee, reported to himself that the candidate was unanimously elected; and forthwith made the return in his favour.'Mirror of Parliament, vol. iii. p. 2371, (1831.) 1832.] DEBATE THEREON. 387 became an antagonist force to the influence of that democracy which he considered already too potent in England. The debates which occurred upon the proposal of the Lord Advocate, though undisturbed by the religious animosities which unfortunately broke out upon the occasion of any discussion relating to Ireland, was nevertheless marked by the same vehement prejudice, and the manifestation of the same personal interests, which had opposed themselves to all reform, whether in one country or the other. In the case of Scotland, this opposition was, however, more astonishing than in that of England or Ireland, because the Scottish system of representation-if representation it could be called-was more utterly preposterous than any which the wit of man had hitherto devised for any other people or country. So plain and palpable indeed was its mockery, that Sir Robert Peel, who was endowed with a fatal facility in the discovery and employment of plausible pretences and fallacious arguments, at once gave up the defence of the existing system in Scotland, viewing it solely with reference to Scotland, and speaking of it as a representation of her people. Its extravagant anomalies could not be denied, or in themselves defended. He therefore sought aid for its support from a consideration of the interests of the United Kingdom, and he thus stated the argument in its favour. The right honourable gentleman must have been in great straits for a reason, when he thus justified his opposition to any 388 SIR R. PEEL OPPOSES THE BILL. [1832. change of the representation of Scotland. During the debate of September, 1831, on the motion to read the Scotch Reform Bill a second time, he said, 'I think you are going to make a great addition to popular influence in England; first by the nature of the constituency which you are about to establish, and secondly, by the removal of those controls which have hitherto existed. Among those controls I certainly enumerated the system of Scotch representation I do not defend the Scotch system of representation, but I maintain that it is a check on the power and influence of the people, and that if you remove it without establishing an equivalent check, you increase to an enormous extent the purely democratic influence in this House.' ' as one. Besides this strained and far-fetched conceit, employed in the shape of an argument, nothing was at any time said in opposition to the principle of the bill deserving the honour of an answer or the trouble of a record. And the opposition on the present occasion, though in words as vehement as ever, did not think it necessary to go to a division; and the bill, after a somewhat tiresome debate, was on the same evening read a second time, and committed. Upon the introduction of this bill in 1831, the Lord Advocate anticipated an objection, founded on the anomalies of his measure, which objection he answered by saying, that to cure all the anomalies of 1 Mirror of Parliament, 1831, Sess. 2, vol. iii. p. 2386. |