had had the benefit of hearing one of the most animated, one of the most impassioned, and evidently one of the most sincere appeals that has proceeded from any person upon the Treasury Benches during any part of this discussion. The right hon. Gentleman says that the plan I proposed aims at drawing a line downwards below which persons should not be permitted to have the franchise, and also at drawing a line upwards with a view to equal en

ple is not an evil, but a good. The enlargement of the pale of the Parliamentary constitution which multiplies the numbers of those whose will, whose thought, whose intelligence, whose education is di

man and the lodger franchise. But the right hon. Gentleman says that I made light of the lodger franchise. Where does he find those words? In the first place, let me say to the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Poor Law Board, that when we brought forward our Bill of last year, we had not all the information as to the circumstances or the feelings of the working classes which we now possess. But the right hon. Gentleman and those who act with him are the true fathers of franchisement. But a great distinction is the agitation which now prevails-they to be drawn between the two propositions. who, as I think, by unwise and unfortunate I am in favour of drawing a line downresistance produced the feeling that now wards; and I think my hon. Friend the spreads through the country from one end Member for Birmingham and other Gentleto the other-they at least have been able men have given good reasons why, in the to secure us this advantage, that we know present state of this country, it is still demore of the desires and dispositions of the sirable to draw such a line. But the working classes at this time than we did drawing of this line is matter of time and twelve months ago. But at what time circumstance. The extension of the frandid I state that the lodger franchise-chise according to the capacity of the peowhich, it must be recollected, was in our Bill-was one of the provisions of that measure with which we could consent to part? It is true that I never was so sanguine as others were as to the number who would be enfranchised under that pro-rectly to be interested in the political acvision. At this moment I do not believe tion of the State-all this is an advantage that the number to be enfranchised in that to the State. All that is requisite is that mode will be nearly as great as many of you should not proceed so fast as to outthe working classes imagine. But a lodger run the competence and to disregard the franchise now, as then, is vital to the condition of the people. And if the consettlement of this question. And the right dition of the people were such in point of hon. Gentleman will not be able to throw education and independence as would lead on the House and the Members of this to their free and intelligent exercise of House the responsibility of dealing with the suffrage with a full independence of this essential portion of the subject. He character, I should not be the man to say must produce in the Bill his own plan for-draw any line at all. The line stands a lodger franchise, and without that he cannot have the smallest hope that this measure will afford satisfaction to the working classes. I wish the House especially the Benches behind the Government-had been full at the time when the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury was addressing the House and when he made his pathetic and earnest appeal to the advocates and friends of household suffrage to support this Bill,liament, have equal access to the equal when he deprecated the conduct of my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, casting on him this reproach-"What! you an advocate of household suffrage, and come forward as an opponent of this Bill? Do you not see that if you support this Amendment you drive household suffrage to a greater distance than ever?" I wish the House generally, and my noble Friend the Member for Haddingtonshire especially,

on the circumstances of the time; and the other portions of the plan which I venture to propose stand upon a principle. The principle which I ask the House to recog. nise is one of permanent application; it is one that never can be wrong. It is this-that those persons whom Parliament recognises as of a class and condition of life fit to be invested with a title to the franchise shall, so far as depends on Par

enjoyment of those rights. The right hon. Gentleman tells us it is impossible to think of a settlement if you draw a line

admitting the classes more independent and more educated, and excluding the classes less independent and less educated. But he thinks he can bring about a settlement by drawing the line among persons of the same class, by giving one man the franchise and refusing it to another, [Committee-Clause 3.

one restraint after another in order to meet objections from various quarters, and that in this way he may mitigate the evils of the Bill. How far that may go I cannot say; but I must decline all responsibility in respect of a measure which, aiming at a settlement of Parliamentary Reform, introduces into that settlement the poison of a principle so pervading the whole measure that it is hopeless to expect that the Bill will receive the acquiescence of the public mind. We have heard a great deal of the evils which would arise from fixing a limit; but I beg to tell the right hon. Gentleman that, limit or no limit, my objection to personal rating remains the same. If we are to travel to household suffrage-and the right hon. Gentleman has done much, I admit, to make it possible that we will soon arrive there-let us look at the matter in the face, and ask ourselves whether it is desirable we should travel to it through the medium of legislation which, for the short time it can possibly endure, will be nothing more nor less than a political blister on the country. Has the right hon. Gentleman considered the consequences which must result from keeping alive such feelings as this Bill will give rise to? Have hon. Members considered that they may rouse the popular mind with reference to a particular question, while they may have no means of securing that the excitement should be confined to the settlement of that question? Now, I desire to be free from the responsibility involved in that question; and, with the permission of the House, I will read a few words, the production of a man of great ability, Mr. Harrison, written in one of the periodicals not very long ago. He says

though the social position of the two may | tleman may be able to lead his Colbe exactly the same, and the only differ- leagues one step after another, removing ence between them that arising from the fact that one lives at the side of a street in which the Small Tenements Act is in operation, and the other on a side where it is not in operation. ["Oh, oh!"] That is no exaggeration. Are there not ninetyeight boroughs of this country in which such a state of things exists? But we are told that those compound-householders can enfranchise themselves. Sir, it appears to me, on examining the clauses of the right hon. Gentleman, that you may have those compound-householders enfranchised by shoals through the agency of others. That I do not deny. But it will not be by the parish officer. He cannot change the status of the compound-householder. It will be by the interference of political agents. Nothing can be easier in all the small boroughs of the country where there are 300, or 400, or 500 compound-householders than at a cost very moderate-when the scale on which many of our election contests unfortunately are conducted is taken into consideration-to make arrangements for putting a large number of those compound-householders on the register under circumstances which will not render the ratepaying very burdensome to them. I do not deny that this might be done; but that is not the enfranchisement we want; and if this is the remedy proposed, it is worse than the inconvenience it is intended to remove, because it would spread the reign of corruption through those boroughs in a way and to an extent which it would be impossible to detect. I object to this system. I have received no answer to the objection I made that the franchise would be extended by political agency; I have received no answer to my objection that you would establish inequality between one town and another; I have received no answer to my objection that you would establish an inequality between one portion of a town and another portion of the same town; I have received no answer to my assertion that, above all, you would establish an inequality between men in the same social position by setting up a fictitious and artificial dis- The excitement of the public mind continction. With that view of personal nected with the passing of an injudicious rating, the right hon. Gentleman will law is an evil for which I do not wish to hardly be surprised if I say that no Bill be responsible. If we are to travel to founded on the principle of this Bill can settle this question, nor deserve the acceptance of this House. It may be that under pressure the right hon. Gen

"A vote may be everything or nothing. Its value wholly depends upon the state of the political atmosphere. Universal suffrage in an easy time would produce far less positive results than heaving of mind and strain of purpose which produce the end, and not the machinery of its expression. The effort necessary to carry out a legal change produces far more results than the change itself."

a narrow franchise in an excited time. It is the

household suffrage, it may be that the present Government may be its immediate authors. I am perfectly convinced that the evils, whatever they might be of that

state of things, will be neutralized and checked by the good sense of the country; but I will not consent to travel to it by a road which would be a way of strife and of disturbance, and which would take away from the nation at large the sense of gratitude for the boon received, and would lead us, after a long period of anxiety and agitation, and through a long course of bitter controversy, to a goal which it is vital to the public interest that we should reach by a peaceful and by a liberal course of procedure.

down, that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the county of Dublin had met with the accident that I am very sorry to have heard of. I sincerely regret the circumstance that the matter has been brought under the notice of the House in the absence of my hon. and gallant Friend, and I am sure sure that the hon. Member for Nottingham, if he had known of the accident, would not have brought the matter forward.

SIR HENRY EDWARDS: I wish to put another question. Had the hon. Member for Nottingham, before he rose to answer my question, earlier in the evening, ascertained whether the hon. Member for Lewes had communicated with the hon. and gallant Member for the county of Dublin?

SIR HENRY EDWARDS: Before the Motion is put perhaps I may be allowed to ask a question touching the honour of a Member of this House. I am very sorry to have to do so; but I feel in honour bound to take this step after what passed in the early part of the evening. It will MR. OSBORNE: I am very much be in the recollection of the House that in obliged to the hon. and gallant Gentleman. the early part of the evening I put a ques- I do not know by the by whether he is gal tion to the hon. Member for Nottingham, lant. I am obliged to him for the mild, and an answer was given which was not gentlemanlike, and courteous way in which satisfactory to myself. It reflected upon he put the question. I shall endeavour not the honour of an absent Friend of mine to imitate his manner exactly, but to give who is not here to answer for himself. a straightforward answer to his question. Therefore, not wishing that the hon. Mem-On entering this House about five minutes ber for Nottingham should be misrepresented, or that the conduct of my hon. Friend should go forth to the world as improper, I will put this question to the hon. Member, and I trust he will give me a straightforward and candid answer. The hon. Member for Nottingham stated that he had in common courtesy given the hon. and gallant Member for the county of Dublin notice that he was about to bring forward his case before the House. I beg to know how and when the hon. Member did give such notice, for no notice had been received at the office of the hon. and gallant Member for the county of Dublin or at his private residence when the hon. Member for Nottingham brought the matter forward?

MR. BRAND: Perhaps I may throw some light upon this matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham asked me to inform my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the county of Dublin that he was about to bring forward the matter to which the hon. and gallant Member for Beverley referred. I told my hon. Friend I should be happy to inform my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the county of Dublin. I endeavoured to find him; but I am very sorry to say I failed in doing so. I was not aware until my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham sat VOL. CLXXXVI. [THIRD SERIES.]

past four o'clock, this statement was put into
my hand. [Colonel STUART KNOX: Whom
by?] Really, the hon. Gentleman is in-
quisitive; but I will satisfy him privately.
I had not time to see the hon. and gallant
Member for the county of Dublin.
I am
not in the habit of doing these things.
The hon. Gentleman will find, if he chooses
to prosecute the matter, that I did not
find the hon. and gallant Member; but I
sent to the hon. Member for Lewes (Mr.
Brand), begging that he would commu-
nicate with the hon. and gallant Member
for the county of Dublin. I thought they
would necessarily meet in the Lobby, and
I was not then aware of the accident that
happened to him. Had I known it had
happened I should never have put the
question or brought the matter forward.
Had I known it I should have dropped the
matter altogether.

SIR HENRY EDWARDS: I stated it.
MR. OSBORNE: I never heard you.
I am sorry for what occurred under the
circumstances.

MR. DILLWYN rose to speak, but was met with cries of "Order!"

THE CHAIRMAN: When the hon. and gallant Member for Beverley rose to put a question I thought he was about to put a question which had some connection with the business immediately before us. [Committee-Clause 3.

3 I

The Committee divided:-Ayes 289; Hartington, Marquess of O'Loghlen, Sir C. M.

Noes 310 Majority 21.

Erskine, Vice-Ad. J. E. Kingscote, Colonel

Gladstone, rt. hn. W. E. Milbank, F. A.

Goldsmid, Sir F. H.
Goldsmid, J.
Gower, hon. F. L.

Goschen, rt. hon. G. J.

Graham, W.
Gregory, W. H.
Grenfell, H. R.
Greville-Nugent, A.W.F.
Greville-Nugent, Col.
Gray, Sir J.
Grey, rt. hon. Sir G.
Gridley, Captain H. G.
Grosvenor, Capt. R. W.

Grove, T. F.
Gurney, S.

Lechmere, Sir E. A. H. Severne, J. E.

Simonds, W. B.

[Committee-Clause 3.