SUFFRAGE HELD IN TRUST.

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weeks. But this broadcast sowing of the suffrage demanded some accuracy in timing, as no returning officer was allowed under the new law to keep the poll open more than two days. It is on the whole surprising that the more democratic Reformers did not try to bar this privilege of the rich. When Lord John Russell, in describing the first Bill, began to set forth his views about the county suffrage, he was interrupted by a listener who asked him to name the condemned boroughs; and it is said by those who were present that the whole audience was so absorbed in disfranchisement as to care for no other topic.

the

The gentleman who polled in a town on which he was privileged to descend like a cuckoo was, perhaps, for a few minutes liable to hissing or something worse, but did not exercise his political faculty like one holding a trust and answerable to his brethren. Yet it was a theory prevalent with the followers of Lord John Russell no less than with the followers of Sir Robert Peel, that the suffrage was held in trust, and that the voter ought to vote without dissimulation. It was dangerous, they thought, to let him escape judgment of his fellow subjects by voting secretly. This theory was acceptable to the crowds of people who had no votes, and in a rough way they exerted a sort of censorship. As long as half the able-bodied men of the nation were kept out of boroughs for want of ten pound dwellings, and out of counties for want of forty shilling freeholds or higher qualifications, they were fain to compensate themselves for their artificial disabilities by insulting and frightening the favoured

citizens. Those who signed for secret voting, which was called the Ballot, appear to have put forward the less effective of two available arguments. They estimated the Ballot too highly as a way of stopping bribery; their adversaries found it easy to argue, from general probability and particular experience, that it would not stop bribery. They should have grounded their proposal rather on the expediency of making it easy for quiet men to vote quietly. The Liberals who disliked the Ballot were naturally abhorrent of secrecy; for secrecy was characteristic of the close borough system; and after sweeping away the irresponsible corporations, they reasonably shrank from granting protection against public opinion to the bodies of two or three hundred voters which in 1832 held representative power.1 The legislators were right in leaving the change to the decision of a more legitimately constituted House of Commons.

The modern aristocracy, which, after the dethronement of James II. reviewed the institutions of Britain, pronounced honestly and prudently in favour of a statute by which it was ordained that if a Parliament had lasted seven years, the sovereign should call upon the people to form another. This period was liable to shortening in two ways, either by the death of the Sovereign, or by the command of the Ministers acting in the name of the Sovereign. The Reformers were guided by Whigs; and the Whigs of King

1 There were not less than fifty regions in the United Kingdom, mostly boroughs, which registered for the first reformed Parliament's election not more than three hundred voters apiece; not less than twenty-seven had between three and four hundred.

TERMS OF PARLIAMENT.

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William IV.'s time agreed, mainly on the same grounds, with their ancestors who had passed the Septennial Act. Lord Grey, in 1797, had included in his project of Reform the term of three years. Meanwhile custom had reduced the existence of Parliament to six sessions at most; and Lord Grey either changed his opinion about a shorter term, or yielded to the contrary opinion of his colleagues. Since the retirement of Lord Liverpool there had been so much instability of administration that there was now less fear than before of Court favourites holding office against the stress of national censure; and the deliverance of the people from the borough-mongers would ensure it sufficient control over its own affairs if changes of Ministries, with the occasional demise of the Crown, brought the average duration of Parliament down to four years, which might be considered probable. In the uncertainty of the time for a general election modern England differs from some other nations which have Liberal Constitutions, and the critical reflection which has approved of this state of things is equivalent to design.

The Stuart kings could dismiss Parliaments in fits of temper, or on calculation, when they reckoned that they could do without supplies. The modern Minister is seemingly the creature of Parliament, but the nation does not long endure a Minister who is not a man of high spirit; and a man of high spirit insists on being for a time master of the assembly to which he owes his place. The term of seven years does not so much cramp, as moderate, party govern

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REPRESENTATION OF BRITISH DOMINIONS.

ment. As long as it is in the statute book it keeps up in a politician's mind a sufficient expectation of enjoying the power which he has generally worked for. The unlimited prerogative which enables the Minister to dissolve Parliament is held over the politician's head, so as to preclude a confident and secure feeling about a seven years' lease. If the term were reduced to three years it would be necessary to limit the prerogative, or else an ordinary citizen would care too little for a seat. The Septennial Act seems to be correlative with the Crown's right of dissolution. But the automatic cessation of a House of Commons on the death of the nominal ruler called King is not to be defended by plain reasoning.

No serious attempt was expected by the authors of the Reform Bill, but one feeble attempt was made by a Reformer not in office, to legislate for the representation of British dominions outside the British Isles. The Isle of Man did not ask, nor was it invited, to give up its curious autonomy; though one would have thought it was as much entitled as Orkney to a member or half a member. Guernsey and Jersey, although ecclesiastically parts of England, continued to escape English taxes and to enjoy free admission to the military and civil service of the Crown, and to retain their several aristocracies, apart from the Parliament of the United Kingdom; so that no one can justly charge the Reformers with an itching for uniformity or a contempt for local colouring.

The broad regions beyond the ocean to which Britons could emigrate with more or less sacrifice of

THE FUTURE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

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their birthright, were likely to be best represented by volunteer advocates, such as gentlemen who had travelled, and who came into either House of Parliament with kind recollections of colonial hosts, by peers who had held governorships, by special delegates sent to the Colonial Office. Paid agents of colonies holding seats in the House of Commons on their general merits were likely to speak for their clients more effectively than if they had been elected by gatherings of the settlers in numbers proportioned to wealth and population. The democracy of Canada, a few years later, employed a Radical, chosen not by Montreal but by Bath.

Much less then was attempted than 'doctrinaires' would have attempted to change the fashion and temperament of the Commons. One great change was determined and effected. Sham representatives were abolished. A mass of habitually idle members, answerable to no bodies of citizens, and breaking in on grave council with the insolent selfishness which is engendered by wealth when wealth indulges itself, had grievously marred the House. Such persons

were henceforth either to merit their seats by winning the good-will of considerable sets of decent people, or to retire altogether from the transaction of State business. It was to be foreseen that, of the men sent up to London by the borough-mongers, all, or nearly all, that had an aptitude for parliamentary life would qualify themselves and find seats; they would henceforth respect themselves more, and do their duty better.