and no provision is made for them, except the provision with regard to the savings banks. I never heard myself that lodgers were a class particularly given to putting their money into the savings bank. If they are, it shows they are very fit for the franchise, and I should like to enfranchise them on that account. But the savings bank franchise will do no more for lodgers than for other men, and, unfortunately, a very amall proportion of those who are skilled artizans in London are to be found among the savings banks depositors. What I find, then, is this. I find that the safeguard of long residence

Well, I presume

the first measure in the war of classes. Talk of the British Constitution! The author of this dual vote is the man who strikes at the British Constitution. That British Constitution rests, and has rested from time immemorial, upon the mutual good-will, respect, and good feeling of the people-upon the equality which they enjoy before the eye of the law-upon the manner in which they meet in their public assemblies as men and citizens, and enjoying equal privileges in that capacity. But the day you place in the hands of the rich man, under the notion of fortifying his position, this weapon to use against his poorer fellow-countrymen-that day you I use the word conventionally-is pracseal the doom of the old British Constitu- tically of small account. I find that the tion that day you sow dissensions that safeguard of the liability to pay rates cannever can abate-that day you destroy the not possibly be accepted by this House confidence that unites all classes of the after it has become aware of the nature community-that day, if you could pass and operation of the laws with respect to this law, if you could promulgate it to- rating in this country. And I say this, morrow as an Act of Parliament in the expressly guarding myself against being terms in which the right hon. Gentleman supposed to undervalue the advantage that has proposed it, you would light up a may belong to a franchise which termiflame the most dangerous and formidable nates at the point where the payment that ever menaced the safety of a State. of rates terminates. Entertaining these opinions, there are that these limitations must go; that the certain questions still in reserve. I still dual vote must go; the right hon. wait to see the proposals by which this Gentleman knows as well as I do that sacred principle of rating is to be applied, the dual vote is dead already. The right and whether it is to be applied in a limited hon. Gentleman required to muster and manner, or whether the whole of the pluck up his courage well in order to speak 700,000 are to be enfranchised. But I to the House of that; for it certainly must observe that there is one extraordi- was a great effort for a man to propose nary omission in the Bill of the right hon. to the House of Commons that which he Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman, must know in his own mind is as comin an admirable passage, which I promise pletely gone as if it had been a proposal to look out and quote in some future de- of the times of Lord Strafford and Charles I. bate, laid down the principle of the lodger Well, then, with the dual franchise gone, franchise. I am ashamed to tread the there is the lodger franchise coming; and ground which has been trodden by the behind the lodger franchise is the broad right hon. Gentleman, and I should be consequence that must follow, as affecting sorry to spoil the effect by an imperfect the county constituencies, of the enfrandescription. But the substance of what chisement of the peasantry. That is the he says is that the existence of a class of form which, in the natural course of things lodgers is a necessity of our modern civil- after a long time, perhaps, and not during ization, and that you have in your great the present Session, the Bill would assume towns, and especially in London, owing if it got into Committee. That is a very to the extremely high cost of space, and extensive change; it may be that this meaconsequently the high rate of rent, a vast sure does not contain provision for it; but, multitude of men living as lodgers, who in as far as one can at present construe it ; other towns of the country, in the very it looks as if it would assume that shape. same condition, with the same character, I am convinced that these safeguards must capacity, and willingness to pay rates-go, and I am confident that a lodger franthat being the fourth of the cardinal virtues-are householders; you have those men in London in tens, twenties, and fifties of thousands. And yet those men the right hon. Gentleman passes by,

chise must come in. I do not hesitate to say I think it is generous on the part of the right hon. Gentleman to offer such a measure as I suppose to Gentlemen on this side of the House. Its operation on

that scale would, no doubt, be highly fa- | utterly and resolutely opposed. With revourable to them; and if the object of the spect, then, to the plan and proposals of right hon. Gentleman be to confer on them the right hon. Gentleman, I think a more increased power, and increased numbers in particular knowledge is requisite to enable the boroughs of the country, I do not say us to judge in what manner they ought to it is for them to quarrel with it. But, Sir, be dealt with as a whole. To many of there are other interests than the interests them, and especially to that most importof party involved. I have not said a word ant one relating to dual voting, I am insince we quitted office in defence of the flexibly opposed; and I confess I think it principle on which we proceeded last year; quite impossible, under any circumstances, but the right hon. Gentlemen stated that that any proposal like that, or one conlast year we proceeded, not on a principle, ceived in such a spirit, can obtain the sancbut "avowedly on an expedient." He may, tion of this House. indeed, have thought it, and may call it an expedient, but assuredly it was not "avowedly" an expedient. We called it, because we believed it to be, a principle; and our principle was this-the enfranchisement of the skilled labour of the country. We have heard much from the other side and elsewhere about the value of the principle of selection, and the last testimony to the value of that principle which I saw was a remarkable letter from the noble Lord the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to the Conservative working men of Huddersfield, in which he said that the best portion of the working classes ought to be admitted to the franchise. Sir, I certainly shall be not a little curious to hear from the noble Lord the reasons which have induced him to come down to this House and offer us a Bill drawn in contempt of the principle he thus recommended -a Bill which utterly excludes all principle of selection, which excludes a vast number of the most skilled and most instructed of our working men, and which, where it admits any of them, admits along with them the poorest, the least instructed, and the most dependent members of the community. Having regard to the extreme gravity of the case, it would be too much for me to presume now to decide what would be the practical effect of so large a measure as this Bill if these pretended safeguards-I do not mean to say that the Government do not believe in their sufficiency-but if these fall away, the proposition certainly requires some consideration before I, for one, could make up my mind upon it. With regard to the proposition in its limited form, with this distinction between rating and rental, and the shutting out of men because their houses are compounded for, owing to their residence in particular parishes and towns which have availed themselves of a great social improvement adopted by Parliament with all its might some fifty years ago-to that I am

SIR WILLIAM HEATHCOTE: Sir, on the occasion of the introduction of so important a Bill by the Government it is far from my intention to go into any lengthened discussion of the subject, or to presume to give an opinion on many of the questions which it raises. But I feel it quite necessary to say a few words, especially on account of some remarks which have fallen from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The right hon. Gentleman, at the close of his speech, mentioned the difficulties with which he had been surrounded in preparing and bringing forward the measure, and he said at last that he had to bring it before the party with whom he acted, and that, although with great difficulty on the part of many of them on the grounds he had stated, it had been on the whole accepted. I feel it necessary on my own behalf to guard myself against being supposed to be one of those who have already given any assent to the measure. I must reserve to myself the right when the next stages of the Bill shall have come to take such course as I may think proper, without reference to any political connections. And I am bound to say that my present impression of the Bill is not favourable. I have endeavoured to look at it from both points of view-from the point of view which I myself, as a Conservative, naturally desire to regard such questions-namely, with a desire to uphold the balance of our Constitution in order and stability. I have endeavoured also to look upon it from the point of view from which hon. Gentlemen opposite may be expected to look at it, and I must confess that it seems to me with a remarkable infelicity to combine objections which have weighed with both sides of the Ilouse. Having guarded myself so far, and having claimed for myself the right, on the second reading of the Bill, or whenever any question may arise, to take my own course in the matter, I will not intrude longer on the attention

of the House. I will only venture to say | ferent rights of voting were fully discussed; that I am not so singular in my opinion and that if any one thing came out more as the right hon. Gentleman seems to clearly than another before that Committee imagine. it was that, according to the ancient common law of England, the men who sustained local burdens and paid local taxes were the men who were entitled to the franchise. That is the class of men who serve on juries, filled parish offices of all kinds, and voted for municipal purposes. The right hon. Member for South Lancashire again ridiculed the principle laid down by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the compound-householders are to have means given them of placing their names on the rate book, and of acquiring the franchise which is attached to rating. The right hon. Gentleman says it would depend to a great extent on the parochial officers whether a man should be on the rate book at all, and that the election agent might pay the rate and so bribe the voter who would thus have a vote. But that applied in some degree to the existing law; because a man at present cannot vote unless his rate is paid. We all know what the ratepaying clause is. A man must pay the rate to have a vote; and if the rate is paid by the landlord the tenant does not have a vote. The right hon. Gentleman assumes that the compound-householder would not have the power to be put on the rate book as proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; but that is not a fair argument, for the right hon. Gentleman has not yet seen the Bill, and we do not know what provisions it contains for the purpose of enabling the compound-householder to put his name upon the rate book; and yet, without knowing what the fact is, the right hon. Gentleman assumes that this is to be a source of fraud. I ask him to wait until he sees the Bill and finds out what are its provisions. ["Question! " But I will not go into further details, for I see that hon. Gentlemen behind me do not like them. However, I will promise to go into them at another time, whether hon. Gentlemen like it or not. One strong conviction has forced itself upon my mind during the speech of the right hon. Member for South Lancashire, and that is, that all Reform is impossible._["No, no!"] I will tell you why. The moment a Reform Bill is brought in by one set of Ministers it is sure to be carped at by the set they have supplanted. They say either that it goes too far, or else that it does not go far enough. It has been thought by most people of late that the Government

SIR GEORGE BOWYER: Sir, I do not intend to lengthen the discussion by following the example set by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire. The right hon. Gentleman stated at the commencement of his speech, as I thought very justly, that the time to discuss the details of the Bill will be when in the hands of Members, and when they can clearly see what its provisions are. I think that a very judicious course, because it is utterly impossible, even with the ability of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to give a perfectly clear view of so difficult and so complex a matter in the course of his speech, to which we have listened with so much attention. But what did the right hon. Member for South Lancashire do after making that declaration? He made a speech than which, in the whole course of my experience, I never heard anything more ingenious or more telling as a party speech, more captious, more bitter, or more sarcastic. That was the character of his speech. I do not want to go into any details; but I must mention one or two points in his speech in which he illustrated the character of the Bill. He expended all his art of irony on the rating franchise. He denied what the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said with great justice that this House did last Session affirm the principle of rating. [Mr. GLADSTONE: Only in boroughs.] I mean in boroughs. The vote that caused the fall of the late Government involved the rating franchise. And what did the Chancellor of the Exchequer say? He said that the principle was affirmed; but that when they came to the application of that principle, the Government found they could not conjoin it with-and accordingly they carried it out without adding it to a value franchise. That might be a fair question for consideration in Committee. The right hon. Member for South Lancashire spoke rather rashly when he condemned the principle that the men to be intrusted with the franchise are those who bear the public burdens. That is not a new principle. It is a very old principle. If the right hon. Gentleman looked to the proceedings of a Committee-well known to all constitutional writers-presided over by Serjeant Glanville 200 years ago, he would find the different franchises and dif

were going too far in the direction of the | before the Mace, for I am sure we should hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright), all like to have a good look at him. The and it has been a common thing to hear it fact is, there is but very little sincerity in said at the clubs and elsewhere, "Why, the whole matter. What have we seen all the Government are going to take the along? Meetings have been held in differwind out of the sails of Mr. Gladstone." ent parts of the country, represented in But we now find that the right hon. Mem- the papers on one side as great successes, ber for South Lancashire, instead of ap- and in the papers on the other as failures. proving of the course taken by the Govern- I was passing on Saturday through ment as promising a great advance in Re- Trafalgar Square when I saw one of these form, turns round calmly and tells the Go- great Reform demonstrations represented vernment that they have done nothing. I am in some of the papers of that morning as not going to enter now into the question of a great political event. But what was the duality of votes beyond stating my own the real fact? I saw 150 people assemconviction that dual voting will not do. bled together in the middle of the Square, When I heard such an ingenious and and Mr. Potter, mounted between two of bitter speech made against Reform, or the British lions, was making a speech to against a very extensive measure of Re- them. The greater part of the people form a measure SO extensive that it were laughing at him, and I heard a good alarmed a great number of the Conserva- many people saying, as they looked up at tive party themselves-and when I saw him, "What a damned fool!" Some time the great advocate of Reform making such previous to that I went to the windows a speech, I must say I came to the con- of a club house to see what was called clusion that Reform is impossible. But "a great Reform demonstration," and I notwithstanding my objection to the pro saw a great number of zealous democrats, posal of dual voting, I must admit I think some of them on horseback, profusely dethe Chancellor of the Exchequer has ac- corated with stars and ribbons, evidently quitted himself with ability of a very diffi- in imitation of the aristocracy. Some cult task-a task so difficult that I believe were Knights of the Garter; some Knights it will be impossible to accomplish. The of the Bath; and of course they preChancellor of the Exchequer has under- sented a magnificent array. One man taken to bring in a Bill which will satisfy all held a telescope, with which he appeared parties, and unless it does satisfy all parties, to be looking at a representation of or, at all events, a very large proportion the moon; but whether or not that of them, it cannot pass this House of Com- was intended to symbolize the presence mons. It has struck me that the Chan- of a considerable number of lunatics in cellor of the Exchequer, in undertaking the procession I cannot say. this, stands very much in the position of a person who, some years ago, advertised all over London that at a particular theatre on a particular night he would get into a quart bottle. Of course, crowds of people went to see so strange a sight; and there they found the man upon the stage, and there they found the quart bottle; but when they called upon him to get into it he said, "Gentlemen, were you such fools as to come here with the expectation that I should perform a sheer impossibility?" Now, it strikes me that we have come here to see the Chancellor of the Exchequer get into a quart bottle, and I must say I am not disappointed to find he cannot do it. I never believed he could. The right hon. Member for South Lancashire, in the course of his speech, said, "We are all of us sincere." Well, I do not know some of us may be sincere, but I should like to see the sincere man. I should like the man who is sincere to step out

There

was no sincerity there, however. They were all people going out for a day's holiday. And yet it is upon these demonstrations-than which nothing more hollow and absurb can be imagined-that the violent cry for Reform is demanded. I do not myself deny that there are many unenfranchised persons in this country who might be advantageously intrusted with the franchise; but that is quite another question, which I am ready to consider calmly and dispassionately. But when I find Reform made, as it is, the stalking-horse of party; when I find a determined effort made to get one party out of office and another party in; when I find that the party out of office are zealous for Reform, but not so zealous for Reform as they are zealous to turn out the other party, then I say that Reform wears very much the appearance of a delusion and a sham; and that until people come to look upon it practically, and as men of business, it is impossible to settle it. But