outvoters; and he also objected to the system of voting papers; but, surely, he will not contend that what he said was an argument in favour of the Resolution or against the second reading of the Bill-it is eminently a point for consideration in Committee. I do not mean to say on the part of the Government that we now pledge ourselves either to the adoption or the rejection of this principle; but the fact that the Bill requires a residence on the part of the freeholder transferred to the borough would at once do away with the whole of the noble Lord's argument. The noble Lord, then, in a declamatory tone, condemned what he called the disfranchisement of the freeholders. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carlisle has this evening used the same language; several other hon. Members have also denounced what they call "this disfranchisement." I must protest against such an expression. I say that the use of this word is not justified by fact, for I contend that there is no disfranchisement, except prospectively, and then to the very limited extent only of where the double vote exists; then I admit you get rid of one of the votes, and the number of cases in which that will occur is very small. But that term "disfranchise

deal of difference between the hon. Gen- | himself enunciated; by the £10 franchise tleman's two statements; but I am not we are adding a very large Liberal element, sure, Sir, that he thinks them so different. and in making that proposal we have only I believe he thinks that representing far- followed out the principle advocated by the mers and country gentlemen is the same noble Lord himself, that it is not conas representing nobody at all. I may sistent with our constitution that the counsay, merely in justice to my constituents ties should be overwhelmed by the towns. and myself, firstly, that I do represent I am sure he must admit the £10 occupathe town; and secondly, that a more in- tion voters will be a liberal element, amply dependent class of electors I do not believe compensating for the withdrawal of the exists in England. Out of 400 voters there borough element. The noble Lord also are not more than twenty over whom I raised another point-and perhaps there is could pretend, if so disposed, to exercise no point in this Bill more open to discussion any sort of influence. There are men of all-which he said would flood the town with parties amongst them, and gentlemen, proprietors of large estates, who are strongly opposed to me in politics. I have sat in this house as the representative of Droitwich for twenty-two years, and have never had to contest an election, solely in consequence of the good and kindly feeling entertained towards me by my neighbours; and I have, therefore, as good reason to be proud of my seat for that borough as the hon. Member for Birmingham, or any other Gentleman in this House, has to be proud of the seat that he occupies. I will now pass to the remarks made by the same hon. Gentleman on a former occasion upon the subject of this Bill. Adverting to our proposal with regard to the transfer of the freehold franchise; he stated that our object was to get rid of the town element in counties. I quite admit that the hon. Gentleman is very seldom unfair in his remarks, never, I am sure, intentionally so; but I must say that this statement was one of a most unfair description. First let me tell the hon. Member that the promoters of this Bill have no object whatever, in a sinister sense, in bringing it forward. Our only object has been to offer to Parliament a just and fair compromise of the difficulties surrounding this long-vexed question. When the hon. Mem-ment" has been constantly applied to the ber says our object is to get rid of the town element in counties because we propose that the borough freeholders should vote for their borough, he must forget, I think, the proposal we make for adding a £10 qualification to the county franchisc. Surely he cannot deny that in every county in England we should thus be adding a larger number than we take away. The same observation applies to the remark of the noble Lord opposite, who said we regarded the borough voters as the Liberal element in the counties; but the fact is we are acting on the very principle which the noble Lord has on former occasions

transfer of the county freeholders to the boroughs, I contend that when you transfer the votes from the counties to the boroughs it may be wise or unwise, it may be popular or unpopular, but in no sense are you justified in applying the word "disfranchisement" as a proper description of the operation, for in no sense is it a disfranchisement. Then I come to the strong objection raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carlisle to what he calls the principle of "identity of franchise," and which he founds partly on this so-called "disfranchisement," and partly on the fact that we do not propose to

lower the borough franchise as compared | you have endeavoured to do is inconsistent with the borough franchise which was of with your own legislation. I cannot rea different nature. But the right hon.frain from noticing what fell from the right Gentleman this evening said that the county hon. Baronet, the Member for Carlisle, in franchise had long been a franchise of pro-reference to voting papers. He says that perty and possession. What were the this question of voting papers is one of propositions contained in the Bill of 1854 great difficulty in practice. It may be so, on the back of which were the names of but I think that if it can be made safe in Lord John Russell and Sir James Graham. practice it will be one of the most valuable The Bill of the noble Lord contained five of our proposals. It will enable thousands franchises which were common to both of electors to vote who are now precluded boroughs and counties: and what is more from doing so by different causes. One of it was proposed that they should be exer- the most remarkable facts attending eleccised by the voters wherever they should tions of late years is the small proportion reside, whether in counties or boroughs. of the electors who exercise the franchise, What happened last year when the hon. as compared with the number who possess Member for East Surrey (Mr. Locke King) the right to vote. In the election for proposed to lower the county franchise to Marylebone the other day, out of 21,000 £10, and, so far as an occupation franchise electors only 10,000 voted. I believe that, is concerned, to make it identical with that in a very large degree, this arises from a of boroughs? The noble Lord voted for disinclination on the part of the most comthat, and the right hon. Baronet the petent persons to vote, on account of the Member for Carlisle voted for it. What turmoil and disturbance and on some occaremains? There are seven franchises in sions danger, of a contested election. If this Bill, and there remains nothing but the we could only succeed in enabling those freehold franchise in question between us. persons to record their votes without enWe propose to throw the freeholders into countering these things, I think we should the boroughs, and this, it is maintained, is confer one of the greatest possible boons. fatal to the Bill. The objection is based ex- I do not see the danger which the right clusively on these borough freeholders, and hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle anthe distinction which the noble Lord has ticipates in reference to the ballot. adverted to, and which my right hon. says, if we adopt these voting papers, we Friend has adverted to, is a large con- shall let in the ballot; but he did not tell stitutional objection that we have made us why. I think it would have puzzled one of the franchises common to counties him to tell us why these voting papers and boroughs alike. Does that franchise would lead to the ballot. There is in the stand in a distinctive position? I main- adoption of this system no reason why setain that after the House passed the Bill of crecy should prevail; there may be, I ad1832, that distinction was lost. The noble mit, some doubt how far we can prevent Lord in 1854 admitted that the adoption of the system from being attended with abuse; a £50 franchise for counties had entirely but the question is not one of principle, altered the county constituency, and done and may be satisfactorily disposed of in away with that constitutional distinction. Committee. I was very sorry to hear from What else did you do by the Act of 1832? the right hon. Baronet, and I think he is You proposed that all £10 householders in the first speaker in this debate who has boroughs should do exactly what we pro- expressed an opinion opposed to our propose that other £10 householders should posal of a larger franchise. He says, "If do. In 1832 you introduced an occupation you lower the lodger franchise from 8s. to franchise, and in 1854 you proposed five 4s., you might as well go to universal sufdifferent sorts of franchises, all of which frage.' Why should we not lower it from were common to counties and boroughs. 8s. to 4s.? I can, however, see no more In 1832 you transferred the freeholders in danger of lowering it from Ss. to 4s. than boroughs to a large extent; and therefore of lowering the county franchise from £10 your argument falls to the ground on this to £1, if this Bill should pass into law. occasion, for the proposal we are now It is a question of prudence and discretion. making is nothing more than the exten- I contend that if this proposal to give a sion to another class of freeholders of the lodger franchise is abandoned, you will very same legislation which you adopted in lose the boldest and most liberal proposal 1832. It may be prudent or imprudent, which has yet been made; and I believe, but to meet the matter in the way in which at the same time, the safest and most Con[Fifth Night.

He

let not the country fail to understand that we cannot meet the matter on the proper ground. That issue will not be the question-whether we shall pass this Bill, or whether we shall agree to the factious Resolution of the noble Lord. The question is whether the House of Commons will fairly grapple with this difficult subject; whether we shall go, in a fair spirit, into Committee, and whether the House will accept what is good in this Bill and amend what is bad; whether we shall arrive at a settlement of this question on principles safe, moderate and temperate, or fling it abroad to await a settlement hereafter by other parties in a spirit not of safe Conservative reform, but of wild democratic innovation.

Mr. GLADSTONE moved the adjournment of the debate.

WAY OF AMENDMENT.

servative. It will give the franchise to a large class who did not now exercise it; and I believe that that lodger franchise will be the nearest approach which is politic and feasible to an educational franchise, and I, for one, have no hesitation in saying that I very much wish we could see an educational franchise adopted. Not long ago I had a conversation with a gentleman whose honesty and straightforwardness I admire, and for whom I entertain a most sincere respect and regard. I admire his talent, and Î respect his virtues-the gentleman I allude to is Mr. Joseph Sturge, of Birmingham. In the course of the conversation Mr. Sturge told me he should be very glad to compromise the question of the franchise for an educational franchise. I said, "Mr. Sturge, I did not think that you and I were agreed so much in principle; but there is a practical difficulty what is your test?" He replied, "I should be content that a man should write RULES OF DEBATE. - RESOLUTIONS BY his name.' I argued that many persons might be able to write their name who might be able to write nothing else, and that, therefore, it would be absurd to proceed on that principle. There is the greatest possible difficulty in an educational franchise, but I believe that if you adopt the lodger franchise you will make the nearest approach you can to an educational suffrage; you will give the vote to an educated class, a most competent class, who in town and country have not now the privilege of voting. I was sorry to hear the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle expressing an objection to this franchise, for I believe that it is one of the best of our proposals; and I hope that when any Reform Bill passes this will be one of the franchises. I feel that I must not longer detain the House. I have endeavoured to meet the arguments of my right hon, Friend against us, and I cannot but hope that the Resolution of the noble Lord which I think a most unfair mode of meeting this Bill-I do hope that his attempt will be defeated. I am prepared to abide the issue of this division. I do hope that the House will deal fairly with this proposal, that they will go into Com-to put it. The right hon. Gentleman must mittee, that they will meet it in a fair spirit, and reject the Resolution of the noble Lord. The proposal of that Resolution I can only attribute to the fact that the noble Lord does not dare to meet our Bill fairly and boldly. Thus, however, must the issue remain; thus must the issue be decided; but let not the House,

Sir GEORGE GREY: I wish to take this earliest opportunity of calling attention to a statement made by the right hon. Gentleman (Sir John Pakington), which it is due to you, Sir, should receive the earliest notice, and which, if unnoticed, would, I think, be calculated to mislead the House on an important point. The right hon. Gentleman said, that having consulted "the highest authority" as to the rules and practice of this House, he was authorized to state that the Resolution moved by the noble Lord the Member for the City of London as an Amendment to the Motion for the second reading of this Bill is unparliamentary and irregular. But I have the best reason for believing that the right hon. Gentleman made that statement under a total misapprehension. You, Sir, being "the highest authority" in this House, there is no doubt that if you, sitting in that chair and presiding over the deliberations of the House had had placed in your hands a Motion which was unparliamentary and irregular, you would, in the performance of the duty which you so ably perform, have refused

have spoken under a total misapprehension, for there can be no "higher authority" in this House than you, Sir, our Speaker. But if the right hon. Gentleman refer to any other authority I must deprecate in the strongest terms any such reference, as this House does not recognize any other authority than yours in regulating

Parliamentary career it was competent to any Member, on the Motion that the Orders of the Day be proceeded with, to move an Amendment on any subject, not relevant even to the subject of any one of the Orders of the Day set down for consideration. That power was most properly restricted, in order to promote the conduct of busi

sult the Journals of the House he will find
that during the time of my immediate pre-
decessor in this chair-and he was very
careful to keep the proceedings of this
House within correct bounds
it hap-
pened that not less than between forty and
fifty Resolutions, by way of Amendments,
were put by him from this chair. It cer-
tainly would have been my duty, if this
Resolution had been irregular, before put-
ting it from the chair to have called the
attention of the House to it. As the ques-
tion has now been asked of me, I can have
no hesitation in declaring that, in point of
order and regularity, it is not possible to
take exception to the form of the Resolu-
tion which is now proposed.

our proceedings. I shall be glad, therefore if you, Sir, will favour us with your opinion whether the Resolution of my noble Friend is unparliamentary and irregular. SIR JOHN PAKINGTON: I am very much indebted to the right hon. Baronet for having called my attention to the expression, and thus giving me an opportunity of explaining it. It was very farness; but if any hon. Gentleman will confrom my intention to convey any such meaning as that which has been placed upon my words. I did not for a moment mean to convey that I had received from you any opinion on this subject; and if the expression "the highest authority" escaped my lips it did so inadvertently. If by that expression I was understood to refer to one Speaker, I now state, in the most distinct manner, that I intended no reference to the right hon. Gentleman in the chair; and if anything fell from me which intimated that word "highest authority" was not applicable to you only, I most readily apologise for it. What I intended to convey was, that I had serious doubts as to whether the Resolution was in accordance with the regularity of parliamentary proceedings; and that I had referred-out of doors-to what I considered high authorities; and the result was the opinion which I expressed, that this proceeding on the part of the noble Lord was, to say the least, irregular and inconsistent with the usual practice of Parliament. If I were asked the question, I should certainly say most distinctly that it is competent for the Speaker to put the Resolution. Whether it was originally within the general practice of Parliament to move such an Amendment I cannot say; but I certainly think that inasmuch as the subject matter of the Resolution is germane to the subject of the Bill, it would not be competent to the right hon. Gentleman in the Chair to refuse to put it. I hope this will be a sufficient explanation both to the right hon. Gentleman and to the House.

MR. SPEAKER:-After the appeal which has been made to me, I trust the House will permit me to say a few words upon the subject of this form of proceed. ing by Resolution. The power of moving Resolutions by way of Amendments, instead of being expanded by modern practice, has, in truth, been greatly limited and restricted. It was correctly said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carlisle in the course of his speech this evening, that in the carly days of his

MR. BASS said, he was sorry to interfere between the right hon. Gentleman opposite and the House, but he thought that the question had been now very fully debated, and unless there was some kind of understanding that it would be finished soon he should be compelled to divide the House on the question of the adjournment of the debate. For what he could see, hon. Gentlemen were ready to go on till Christmas talking on this question of Re form.

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: I wish to take this opportunity of making a short explanation on a point on which the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland made some remarks, I am told, in the early part of the evening. The hon. and learned Gentleman, I am told, in reference to an explanation which I made on Friday night, in answer to some parts of his speech which referred to the affairs of Italy in 1849, asserted to-night that upon further inquiry he had found that his original statement was perfectly correct. I have not had the opportunity of referring to documents; but, speaking from memory, I wish to say that the proposal which Baron Hummelauer stated to me he was autho rized to make was, that Lombardy should be erected into a separate Duchy under an Austrian Archduke in connection with the Austrian empire. At that time the Austrians were entirely out of Lombardy; it

1008

was in possession of the Sardinian and the
other Italian troops. I said to him that of
Gourse the English Government had no
upon those matters; if
power to determine
we were asked, all we could do was to give
advice to the King of Sardinia, who at
that time was the principal agent in these
transactions, and to recommend any ar-
rangement which we thought might be
satisfactory to all parties; but I said that
was an arrangement which it would be idle
to propose; that it was not likely that the
King of Sardinia would evacuate Lombardy
for the purpose of restoring it to the Aus-
trians. He replied that that was what he
was ordered to propose, but that he would
undertake to go back to Vienna and would
recommend an arrangement which might
have the effect of rendering Lombardy an
independent State, altogether dissevered
from the Austrian empire. I said that
that no doubt was a great step in advance;
but he must recollect that Venice and part
of the Venetian territory were at that mo-terviews with the noble Lord, and of the
ment also in a state of practical independ-
ence, that armies were marching from all
parts of Italy to co-operate with the King
of Sardinia for the purpose of freeing
Northern Italy from the Austrian domi-
nation, and that it was very unlikely that
any arrangement would be consented to by
Sardinia which did not include in it some
portion of the Venetian territory. The
King of Sardinia, I said, was not a man
likely to consent to any arrangement which
would have the effect simply of adding to
the territory of Sardinia, and would leave
Venice to be restored to the dominion of
Austria, which for the moment had been
shaken off. Baron Hummelauer stated that
he would return to Vienna, and submit to
his Government the answer which I had
made to his proposal; but before any result
could arise things in Italy took a different
turn, the Austrian Government having re-
conquered Lombardy by force of arms, de-
termined by force of arms to retain it; and
they then stated that the whole arrangement
must be considered altogether at an end.

of Austria were inclined to give up Lom-
bardy, provided an arrangement could be
made by which Lombardy should take a
fair share of the public debt, and the
noble Lord was also apprised that Baron
Hummelauer was coming to England to
endeavour to make arrangements for that
The noble Lord is quite accu-
purpose.
rate in his statement, that the first propo-
sition of the Austrian Government was,
that Lombardy should have a separate
administration-a separate Government-
and that would have been a great step
gained-a national army, and a Govern-
ment which would be acceptable to the
people; but, as has been truly stated by
the noble Lord, that as Modena and Parma
should be thrown into the bargain, that
the future ruler should be a member of the
Austrian Royal family. To such a pro-
posal the noble Lord, as he says, objected,
and he seems to have forgotten that Baron
Hummelaur wrote, as the result of his in-

MR. WHITESIDE: The statement of the noble Lord does not at all affect the truth of what I stated. I have referred to the papers, for I took a great interest in the question at the time, and the House may well conceive that communications respecting the future destinies of kingdoms were not allowed to rest on vague conversation. The fact is, that Lord Ponsonby apprised the noble Lord by a communication from Vienna that the Royal family

impression made upon him by the state-
ments of the noble Lord, that he thought
it right to state the principles on the basis
of which a new arrangement might be
made, and he enclosed that statement of
principles, the very first paragraph of which
was, that Lombardy should be free and in-
dependent, that she should choose her own
Government without the control of Austria,
with
if England would consent to settle the af-
agree
fairs of Italy on this basis. I
the noble Lord that the paper proceeds to
say that the same terms would not be of-
fered to Venice-Austria could not give
up Venice-but it was proposed that she
should have a separate administration and
The noble Lord took
a separate army.
from the 23rd May to the 3rd of June to con-
sider these propositions, and I venture to
say that he then had a golden opportunity
of settling the affairs of Italy, which may
On the 3rd of June he
never again occur.
informed Baron Hummelauer that, so far
as Lombardy was concerned, the terms
were satisfactory; but he insisted that
Venice should be thrown into the arrange-
ment.

That was refused. Then Austria proceeded to assert her rights by force of arms; and then in the month of August the noble Lord wrote to Lord Ponsonby to say that he was willing to settle the affairs of Italy upon the terms proposed in May. It was then too late-it has been always too late from that time-and I fear that this one golden opportunity having been neglected, it will be too late for the future.