1820-30] Minor proposals for Reform. — Macaulay 601

Liberty would only be endangered when uniformityof rights and privileges (that is a democratic or universal suffrage), prevailed. Thus the rotten boroughs, with their limited and restricted numbers of voters, were actually the safeguards of order. To yield to Reform was to destroy the last bulwark, to remove the last plank between the Constitution and the boundless flood of democracy. On this point all Tories were agreed, Canning with Eldon, and Peel with Wellington; and, as is now to be seen, their unyielding obstinacy had the most momentous consequences, not only for the Tory party but for the country as a whole.

During the years 1820-30 Lord John Russell brought forward a series of exceedingly moderate motions on Reform. In 1821 he carried a proposal to disfranchise the notoriously corrupt borough of Grampound, and to transfer its members to Leeds. The Lords granted the disfranchisement, but assigned the two members not to Leeds, but to Yorkshire county; and the Commons agreed. In 1826-7 Russell brought forward similar motions, with reference to the boroughs of East Retford and Penryn, which had been convicted of corruption. He proposed to transfer the franchise of the one to Birmingham, of the other to Manchester. Eventually the Lords refused to disfranchise either borough. All these proposals were reasonable and moderate; and, in the opinion of competent contemporary observers, timely concession to them would have averted the very much larger and more sweeping measures of 1832. The reason why the Tories resisted even these modest demands has already been given. Concession with them was not a question of expediency but of principle; and to yield in one point was therefore to surrender that principle. The rigid and unbending hostility displayed by the Tory party towards Reform was the main cause of their complete discomfiture in 1832.

Though Lord John Russell possessed the undivided support of an influential section of the Whig party, and the goodwill of the whole of it, the official adoption of Reform by the Whig party was still to come. During the years 1820-30 the Whig political creed was gradually elaborated, and shown to differ profoundly from that of the " Philosophical" Radicals. Mackintosh was the first distinguished Whig to attack them; and Brougham kept up a constant fire upon them in the Edinburgh Review. But the great assault was delivered by Macaulay in that journal during the years 1829-30. His articles, if somewhat ill-considered and undignified in their violence, certainly did not equal James Mill's abuse of the Whigs in general, or of Mackintosh in particular. Though inferior both to Bentham and to Mill in the higher ranges of thought, he undoubtedly exposed the inadequacy of their principles. He demonstrated, with characteristic vigour of style and wealth of illustration, that the principle of self-interest did not govern all human affairs. He proved also, at least to his own satisfaction, that Mill's political views were historically false and would be practically

602 The Whigs and Reform [1820-30

dangerous. After this destructive criticism Macaulay advanced the definite and positive view, that universal suffrage would be a revolution hazardous for England, but that an extension of political power to the middle classes would be a reform alike safe, moderate, and final. It is not easy to exaggerate the importance of this conclusion, which indeed was one speedily to be forced both on the Whigs and on the nation. Pushed to its logical outcome, it meant a complete change in the balance of political and social forces and implied nothing less than a revolution. But it was a view admirably suited to the new forces and conditions of the time, to the decaying power of land and rank, and to the increasing influence of wealth and commerce.

The announcement and adoption of Macaulay's conclusion marks the ultimate success of the Benthamites as destructive critics, and their immediate failure as constructive politicians. Few even of the Tories now dared to speak of the existing system as that " matchless Constitution," which they had once so slavishly adored. The fetish-worship of the Constitution, inaugurated by Blackstone, had been destroyed for ever by Bentham. Whigs admitted the justice and force of his criticisms as readily as the Radicals themselves, though they denied the practical value of his suggested reforms. Whereas Bentham would have distributed votes to the whole of the unrepresented classes, Macaulay would restrict them to the middle class. Where Bentham would have given a vote to every man, Macaulay would give it to every shopkeeper. Popular agitations still brought the names of Bentham and of Radical Reform before the world; but Parliamentary Reform was now in the hands of the Whig party. The Whig landlords dropped their aristocratic prejudices, the Whig capitalists their democratic or Benthamite leanings. The leaders of the party were men of position or wealth, ill-disposed to listen to sweeping or revolutionary proposals. Their most influential supporters were men who had property to lose and vested interests to consider, and were therefore disinclined for extravagance or violence. The middle classes were resolved to have some representation at any cost; but their most ambitious hopes did not reach beyond a household suffrage. For a time their allegiance had wavered between Whig and Tory. Canning and Huskisson had appealed to them by a policy of financial reform and economy. The Whigs had gone one step further, by their eager advocacy of Catholic Emancipation and repeal of the Test Acts. On Reform they had indeed often wavered, but the hopelessly adverse attitude of the Tories towards that question at length convinced the middle classes that their only hope lay with the Whigs.

The alliance of Whig peers and landowners with Leeds woolmerchants and Manchester cotton-princes was at length consummated by the events of the year 1830. General exasperation was felt when Lord John Russell's proposals for the enfranchisement of Birmingham, Leeds, and Manchester, were summarily rejected in the Commons.

1830-1] The Whigs in power.—- Committee on Reform 603

A more intense indignation was awakened by Wellington's reply to Earl Grey in the Lords. Questioned as to whether he intended to bring in a Reform Bill, the Duke responded by a direct denial. But he foolishly went on to allege that the legislature and system of representation deservedly possessed the confidence of the country. At the very moment when even bigoted defenders of the old system excused it only on the ground that it worked better in practice than appearance, Wellington suddenly lavished upon it eulogies which Blackstone himself could hardly have excelled. Few speeches have ever had a greater effect than this one, though the effect was exactly the reverse of the speaker's intention. A storm of popular indignation, apparently as unexpected as it was effective, arose, swept the Tory Ministry from office, and placed the Whigs in power. Earl Grey, who headed the new Ministry, had often wavered and hesitated on the question of Parliamentary Reform. But at this great crisis of its fate his attitude was admirably firm. He accepted office only on the direct understanding that Reform should be made a Cabinet measure, and that a Bill on the subject should be introduced, as soon as possible, into the Commons.

All the new Ministers were agreed as to the necessity of Reform, but all differed as to the extent of the concessions desirable. Palmerston, Melbourne, and Goderich, like true Canningites, desired only the minimum of change. Brougham and Grey advocated a partial, Althorp and Lambton a sweeping, disfranchisement of the rotten boroughs. Grey believed in quinquennial, Lambton in triennial, Parliaments ; Lambton and Althorp were for the ballot, Grey and Brougham were against it. Brougham and Althorp were for granting a household suffrage in all borough constituencies; the Cabinet, as a whole, insisted that the suffrage should only be given to householders paying £20 rent. Finally a committee of four was appointed to prepare a scheme of Reform. It consisted of Lambton (now Lord Durham) and Sir James Graham, both Cabinet Ministers, and of Lord John Russell and Lord Duncannon, both members of the Administration.

The condition of the boroughs, which the Committee began to examine, was in itself the most eloquent argument for Reform. Roughly speaking, there were four classes of boroughs: nomination boroughs, rotten boroughs, boroughs where the franchise was considerable but not excessive, and boroughs where the franchise was, comparatively speaking, democratic. Nomination boroughs were those in which the patron had an absolute right to choose his own candidate. One such constituency was an uninhabited green mound, another a ruined wall, a third was submarine. Having purchased the freehold of the constituency, the patron could still return his candidate, even if his constituency had ceased to be inhabited, or as in the last case had actually disappeared from the earth. Such anomalies gave rise to the irresistible popular

604 Rotten and nomination boroughs

arguments so wittily characterised by Bagehot: "Mr Canning was an eloquent man, but even he could not say that a decaying tree-stump was the people." In theory this system was utterly indefensible ; in practice it had some slight advantages. Canning and Burke, Sheridan and Brougham, had all sat for nomination boroughs, whose patrons imposed no restrictions and exacted no guarantees. But even in these cases a moral obligation existed ; and the nominee was usually subservient to his patron. A common defence for nomination boroughs was that poor but talented men were introduced into Parliament without the expense or tedium of election, and thus enabled to devote their undivided energies to the national service. But there were evils enough to counterbalance these dubious advantages. So long indeed as a nomination borough remained in the hands of a patron, corruption was impossible ; but whenever such a borough passed from the control of its patron evil practices began. It was advertised in the papers, shamelessly offered for sale in public, and knocked down to the highest bidder; the evils of corrupt influence again ceased with the conclusion of the bargain. So high-minded and democratic a politician as Romilly calmly advocated the purchase of a nomination borough, as the best means of securing a seat and avoiding direct and continuous bribery.

If defenders of the nomination system appealed to its practice to defend its theory, defenders of the rotten boroughs found it more convenient to reverse the process. It is sometimes difficult to draw an absolute line between rotten and nomination boroughs. But in general the patron had an absolute proprietary right in the nomination borough; in the rotten borough he could only establish his control by direct influence or by direct bribery. At every election the Treasury agents did a regular business in rotten boroughs, buying some for the Government, selling others, attempting to influence yet more. When such practices were, so to speak, officially recognised, it is easy to see to what extent similar practices would be pushed by private individuals. The system was illustrated at its worst in 1829. On the defeat of his' nominee for Newark, the Duke of Newcastle ascertained the names of all the hostile voters who held land or property from him, and promptly expelled every one of them from his tenancy. When remonstrance was made at this political persecution, the Duke replied, " Have I not the right to do what I like with my own?" The Duke, who had forced his previous nominee to resign for a difference of opinion, now thought it right to punish the electors for differing from him as to the choice of their representative. This case may have been extreme and unusual, but it proves how little check there was on the powers exercised by individuals in such boroughs over voters and representatives alike.

Public opinion and some slight legislative reforms had done something to check the worst evils. Accounts of borough elections under Castlereagh and Liverpool certainly appear to indicate an improvement

Bribery and undue influence 605

since the days of Pitt. But the evils were still enormous. It is certain that direct bribes were received by the majority of electors in most rotten boroughs. In some cases the practice was so systematised, that electors, immediately after recording their votes, proceeded to the agent's office, and drew the sum promised beforehand as the price. The men of Grampound used brazenly to proclaim that their votes were worth .£300 each at elections. Of the amount of influence, as distinct from direct money-payments, exerted upon electors, it is impossible to give any real conception. The case of Newark illustrates possibilities; it is known that landlords frequently offered to raise the rents of recalcitrant voters, and that corporations sometimes threatened to issue orders of impressment on their bodies. Every kind of pressure, direct and indirect, seems to have been put upon the elector. The prolonged excitement of the polls, often extending to a fortnight, encouraged disturbance and increased bribery,'and promoted tippling at the rival beerhouses hired by the candidates, where the free and independent electors ate and drank to their hearts' content. A borough election was an orgy of bribery, rioting, and drunkenness. But the profoundest evils of rotten boroughs did not lie in their corruption, great though it was, but, as in the case of nomination boroughs, in the more subtle attack on political morality, and in the low standard of public conduct which the system promoted.

In the third class of boroughs, such as Liverpool, where the electorate, though restricted, was numerous, it is known that a certain amount of direct bribery and of undue influence was exercised; but, compared with rotten boroughs, their electoral purity was great. On the other hand, the class of practically democratic boroughs was comparatively small. Here the franchise sometimes depended on payment of poor or church rate, sometimes it extended to every householder ; the " potwalloper" qualified by cooking his meals in a pot within the borough limits. In each case virtual democracy existed. Bentham and his friends were fond of adducing Westminster, the most famous of these popular constituencies, as an instance to prove that democracy could not only choose distinguished men, but could elect them amid scenes of comparative purity and tranquillity. This seems to have been true enough in this one case; but it is very doubtful whether other democratic constituencies were equally well-behaved.

In 1770 Lord Chatham had proposed to add a third member to each county to counterbalance the corruption of boroughs, on the express ground that the county freeholders were more independent than borough voters. If, as seems clear from contemporary accounts, the borough elections had improved since the days of Pitt, it would seem that the county elections had declined since the days of Chatham. It was certainly harder to influence or to bribe county voters; but influence was often exerted by the great landed proprietors with effect and success.