Part 13 (1/2)
The Bill as first introduced in 1866 was a moderate measure, making a 7 rental the qualification for a vote in the boroughs. It was too moderate to provoke any enthusiasm, and it was hateful to the old Palmerstonian Whigs and most of the Conservatives, who objected to any enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the working cla.s.s. By a combination of these opponents the Bill was defeated, the Liberals retired from office, and a Conservative ministry under Lord Derby, with Disraeli leading the House of Commons, was formed.
THE HYDE PARK RAILINGS (1866)
It was seen quickly that there was a very real demand for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the town workman--the agricultural districts remained unawakened--and Reform Leagues and Reform Unions sprang up as they had done in 1831. Then in London came the incident of the Hyde Park railings, which gave a distinct impetus to the Reform movement. What happened at Hyde Park was this: the London Reform Union decided to hold a monster demonstration in Hyde Park on July 23rd, but the Chief Commissioner of Police had declared the meeting must not take place, and ordered the gates to be closed at five o'clock. Mr. Edmund Beales, and other leaders of the London Reform Union, on being refused admittance, drove away calmly to hold a meeting in Trafalgar Square, but the great ma.s.s of people remained outside the park, ”pressed and pressing round the railings.” Some were clinging to the railings; others deliberately weakened the supports of the railings.
Park Lane was thronged, and all along the Bayswater Road there was a dense crowd. The line was too long for the police to defend, and presently, when the railings yielded to the pressure, the people poured in to the park.
”There was a simultaneous, impulsive rush, and some yards of railing were down, and men in scores were tumbling and floundering and rus.h.i.+ng over them. The example was followed along Park Lane, and in a moment half a mile of iron railings was lying on the gra.s.s, and a tumultuous and delighted mob was swarming over the park. The news ran wildly through the town. Some thought it a revolt; others were of opinion it was a revolution. The first day of liberty was proclaimed here--the breaking loose of anarchy was shrieked at there. The mob capered and jumped over the sward for half the night through. Flower beds and shrubs suffered a good deal, not so much from wanton destruction, as from the pure boisterousness which came of an unexpected opportunity for horseplay. There were a good many little encounters with the police; stones were thrown on the one side, and truncheons used on the other pretty freely. A few heads were broken on both sides, and a few prisoners were made by the police; but there was no revolution, no revolt, no serious riot even.”[81]
The Guards were called out, and a detachment arrived at the park, but the people only cheered the soldiers good-humouredly. Not even a blank cartridge was fired that day.
The Government, however, took the Hyde Park disturbance with extreme seriousness. ”Nothing can well be more certain than the fact that the Hyde Park riot, as it was called, convinced Her Majesty's ministers of the necessity of an immediate adoption of the reform principle.”[82] Disraeli, who in 1859 had proposed reform without getting any support, now saw that a great opportunity had come for a constructive Conservative policy, and boldly insisted to his party that Parliamentary Reform was a necessity.
”You cannot establish a party of mere resistance to change, for change is inevitable in a progressive country,” he told his followers.
All through the autumn and winter great demonstrations took place in the large towns and cities of the country in support of the demand for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the workman, and when Parliament met in February, 1867, a Reform Bill was promised in the Queen's Speech. To Lord Derby the measure was frankly a ”leap in the dark,” and one or two Conservative ministers (including Cranborne, afterwards Lord Salisbury) left the Government in disgust. But the Conservatives generally chuckled at ”dis.h.i.+ng the Whigs,”
and the Bill, with considerable revision, was pa.s.sed through both Houses of Parliament by August.
HOUSEHOLD SUFFRAGE
By the Reform Bill of 1867 all male householders in boroughs were enfranchised, and all male lodgers who paid 10 a year for unfurnished rooms. The town workman was enfranchised by this Act as the middle-cla.s.s man had been enfranchised by the Act of 1832, and the electorate was increased from about 100,000 to 2,000,000. An amendment that women should not be excluded from the franchise was moved by John Stuart Mill, and defeated. Some redistribution of seats took place under the Act of 1867, eleven boroughs were disfranchised, thirty-five with less than 10,000 inhabitants were made single-member const.i.tuencies, and additional representation was given to Chelsea, Hackney, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Salford, Glasgow, Birmingham, Dundee, and Merthyr. ”Thus was _Household Suffrage_ brought in in the boroughs, and a great step was made towards democracy, for it was plain that the middle-cla.s.s county const.i.tuencies could not last very much longer now that all workmen who happened to live in boroughs had their votes.”[83]
The third Reform Act, giving household suffrage to the country districts, was pa.s.sed by Gladstone in 1884, and it was followed by a Redistribution of Seats Act in 1885. By these two Acts the agricultural labourer was enfranchised, a service franchise was created for those who were qualified neither as householders nor lodgers, and the principle of single-member equal electoral districts--on a basis of 54,000 inhabitants--was adopted.
Only twenty-three boroughs, the City of London and the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin, retained double-member representation. The members.h.i.+p of the House of Commons was increased from six hundred and fifty-eight to six hundred and seventy, the present total; and the franchise remains as it was fixed in 1885--occupation and owners.h.i.+p giving the right to vote.
From time to time, for more than a hundred years, a plea has been put forward for universal or adult suffrage for men on the ground of an abstract right to vote, but it has met with little encouragement.[84] There is, however, a wide feeling in favour of simplifying the registration laws, so that a three-months' residence, instead of, as at present, a year's residence from one July to the next, should be sufficient to qualify for the franchise. There is also a strong demand for ”one man, one vote.” At present, while no elector may give more than one vote in any const.i.tuency, he may, if he has property in various places, give a vote in each of these districts, and some men thus give as many as a dozen votes at a general election. This plural voting by property and residential qualifications in different const.i.tuencies is not customary in other const.i.tutional countries, and a Bill for its abolition pa.s.sed the House of Commons in 1906, but was rejected by the Lords.
While Liberals urge ”one man, one vote” as the more democratic arrangement, Conservatives reply by asking for ”one vote, one value”--that is, a new redistribution of seats, for in the last twenty-five years there have been deep and extensive changes in the distribution of populations, and Ireland in particular is over-represented, it is maintained. But then the representation of Ireland in the House of Commons was really guaranteed by the Act of Union, 1800.[85]
WORKING-CLa.s.s REPRESENTATION IN PARLIAMENT
With the extension of the franchise the change in the _personnel_ of the House of Commons has become marked. The more wealthy of the middle cla.s.s entered in considerable numbers after 1832; the Acts of 1867 and 1884 made the entry of the workman inevitable. The miners were the first to send Labour representatives to Parliament, and to-day their members outnumber those of any other trade. Since 1892 industrial const.i.tuencies, chiefly in Yorks.h.i.+re, Lancas.h.i.+re, South Wales, and the mining districts, have gone on steadily electing and re-electing working-cla.s.s representatives--trade union secretaries and officers for the most part--and with the formation of a National Labour Representation Committee in 1900, these representatives became a separate and distinct party--the Labour Party after 1906--in the House of Commons.
Enfranchis.e.m.e.nt to secure representation for the redress of grievances has been the principle that has guided the English people towards democracy.
Both the middle cla.s.s and the working cla.s.s were convinced that enfranchis.e.m.e.nt was necessary if the House of Commons was to be in any real sense a representative a.s.sembly, and both have used enfranchis.e.m.e.nt for obtaining representation in Parliament. The return of forty Labour Members at recent general elections is evidence that a large electorate supports the Labour Party in its desire to carry in Parliament legislation that will make life a better thing for the labourer and his family; and in the House of Commons the Labour Members have won a general respect. As a matter of fact, the House of Commons to-day is in every way a more orderly, a more intelligent, more business-like, and better-mannered a.s.sembly than it was in the days before 1832.
No stronger evidence of the value of Parliamentary representation to the working-cla.s.s can be offered than the large output of what may be called labour legislation in recent years. It is true that Lord Shaftesbury's benevolent and entirely disinterested activities promoted Factory Acts in the first half of the nineteenth century, but in the last twenty years measures for the amelioration of the lot of the workman have been constantly before Parliament.
REMOVAL OF RELIGIOUS DISABILITIES--CATHOLICS, JEWS, AND FREETHINKERS
The nineteenth century was not only the century of popular enfranchis.e.m.e.nt; it was the century that saw the removal of religious disabilities, and the free admission to Parliament and to the Government of Roman Catholics, Nonconformists, Jews, and Freethinkers.
In the year 1800 Roman Catholics in England were excluded from Parliament, from the franchise, from the magistracy, the Bar, the Civil Service, from munic.i.p.al corporations, and from commissions in the Army and Navy. Pitt was willing to abolish these disabilities on the pa.s.sing of the Act of Union, and the Irish people were bitterly disappointed that the disabilities remained. But George III. refused all a.s.sent to the proposals, and Pitt resigned. Several times the House of Commons pa.s.sed Catholic Relief Bills, which were thrown out by the Lords, and it was not till 1829, when ”the English ministry had to choose between concession and civil war,” that Peel and the Duke of Wellington yielded and persuaded their party to admit Catholics to Parliament and to the Civil and Military Services.
The repeal of the Penal Laws against Roman Catholics--Acts of Elizabeth that inflicted penalties on priests who said ma.s.s in England, and on Roman Catholics who attended ma.s.s--took place in 1844, and in 1866 the Parliamentary Oath was amended and made un.o.bjectionable to Roman Catholics.
A Roman Catholic is still excluded by law from the Crown, the Lord Chancellors.h.i.+p, and the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, but many Roman Catholics are members of Parliament--members of all parties--and the late Lord Ripon, a Catholic, sat in a Liberal Cabinet.
In 1846 Rothschild was elected as a Liberal M.P. for the City of London, but the law did not permit him to take his seat. Then for some years Jewish M.P.'s were allowed to take part in debates and sit on committees, but were not allowed to vote. Finally, in 1858, the Lords, after rejecting the measure for ten years, pa.s.sed the Jews' Disabilities Bill, which removed all restriction. The Right Hon. Herbert Samuel, M.P., is the first Jew to sit in the Cabinet, for though Disraeli was of the Jewish race, he was a Christian in belief.