PART VIII THE AGE OF REFORM CHAPTER I THE OLD PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM IN its origin and development the Parliamentary system of England had never been shaped according to any logical or democratic principles. On the eve of the great Reform Bill of 1832, it rested on customs which had grown up gradually and on statutes which had been passed to meet specific problems. Consequently it presented many grievances especially to the manufacturing and working classes which had sprung up as a result of the industrial revolution. The franchise was restricted and unequal, representatives were not apportioned according to population, and the government was corrupt. It is of prime importance, therefore, that the old Parliamentary system should be studied as a preliminary to an understanding of the great measures which transformed England into a political democracy. 1 1. Means of Communication and Politics 1 There is at the present time no town in either England or Wales which a man cannot reach in a twelve hours' journey from London. He may be whirled from the metropolis to York or from York to the metropolis in four hours. Two hundred years ago a gentleman would have thought himself fortunate if he had been able to reach London from Northumberland in a week. A coach in 1706 undertook with the blessing of God to convey persons from London to York in four days. The facilities which roads and Walpole, History of England since 1815, Vol. I, pp. 114 ff. By permission of Longmans, Green, & Company, Publishers. railways have afforded to travellers have indirectly led to an alteration in the composition of the House of Commons. Parliamentary reform might have been almost indefinitely delayed, if it had not been for Telford, Brindley, and Stephenson. In the days when travelling was difficult and dangerous, the right of representation was of little value. A journey from London to Northumberland was a more hazardous operation than a journey to New York is now; and the burgesses, who were entitled to send members to Parliament, found it difficult to obtain persons who were willing to act as their representatives. It became necessary to adopt the practice of making some allowance to the people who were thus selected, and the borough member became in consequence a paid delegate, and not an unpaid representative. In such a state of things the privilege of representation was naturally of little value. Places which had originally enjoyed the right of returning members ceased to exercise it. Places in which the crown or some wealthy person had influence were given the right, and no one ever questioned the power of the crown to grant it. The Tudor sovereigns created borough after borough; but the creations attracted no attention. The great contest of the seventeenth century fundamentally altered the position of the House of Commons. By asserting its right to exercise a decisive control over the government of the country, the House established its position and its influence. Almost at the same time some progress was made towards better, cheaper, and quicker travelling. Parliament complained that country gentlemen were coming to London, instead of staying at home. They failed to observe that the causes, which were collecting all the country gentlemen into one centre, were contributing to increase the influence of the House of Commons. Yet there can hardly be a question that this was the case. The moment that it became the fashion for a country gentleman to spend a certain period of each year in London, all the apprehensions connected with the journey disappeared. No further difficulty was experienced in obtaining members for each borough, and a seat in Parliament became of value from the social influence and the position which it gave. In the meanwhile other parts of England shared the increasing prosperity which was visible in the metropolis. New centres of industry acquired fresh importance, while the old boroughs, in which the county families had met together, either ceased to grow or began slowly to decay. PART VIII THE AGE OF REFORM CHAPTER I THE OLD PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM In its origin and development the Parliamentary system of England had never been shaped according to any logical or democratic principles. On the eve of the great Reform Bill of 1832, it rested on customs which had grown up gradually and on statutes which had been passed to meet specific problems. Consequently it presented many grievances especially to the manufacturing and working classes which had sprung up as a result of the industrial revolution. The franchise was restricted and unequal, representatives were not apportioned according to population, and the government was corrupt. It is of prime importance, therefore, that the old Parliamentary system should be studied as a preliminary to an understanding of the great measures which transformed England into a political democracy. 1. Means of Communication and Politics1 There is at the present time no town in either England or Wales which a man cannot reach in a twelve hours' journey from London. He may be whirled from the metropolis to York or from York to the metropolis in four hours. Two hundred years ago a gentleman would have thought himself fortunate if he had been able to reach London from Northumberland in a week. A coach in 1706 undertook with the blessing of God to convey persons from London to York in four days. The facilities which roads and Walpole, History of England since 1815, Vol. I, pp. 114 ff. By permission of Longmans, Green, & Company, Publishers. railways have afforded to travellers have indirectly led to an alteration in the composition of the House of Commons. Parliamentary reform might have been almost indefinitely delayed, if it had not been for Telford, Brindley, and Stephenson. In the days when travelling was difficult and dangerous, the right of representation was of little value. A journey from London to Northumberland was a more hazardous operation than a journey to New York is now; and the burgesses, who were entitled to send members to Parliament, found it difficult to obtain persons who were willing to act as their representatives. It became necessary to adopt the practice of making some allowance to the people who were thus selected, and the borough member became in consequence a paid delegate, and not an unpaid representative. In such a state of things the privilege of representation was naturally of little value. Places which had originally enjoyed the right of returning members ceased to exercise it. Places in which the crown or some wealthy person had influence were given the right, and no one ever questioned the power of the crown to grant it. The Tudor sovereigns created borough after borough; but the creations attracted no attention. The great contest of the seventeenth century fundamentally altered the position of the House of Commons. By asserting its right to exercise a decisive control over the government of the country, the House established its position and its influence. Almost at the same time some progress was made towards better, cheaper, and quicker travelling. Parliament complained that country gentlemen were coming to London, instead of staying at home. They failed to observe that the causes, which were collecting all the country gentlemen into one centre, were contributing to increase the influence of the House of Commons. Yet there can hardly be a question that this was the case. The moment that it became the fashion for a country gentleman to spend a certain period of each year in London, all the apprehensions connected with the journey disappeared. No further difficulty was experienced in obtaining members for each borough, and a seat in Parliament became of value from the social influence and the position which it gave. In the meanwhile other parts of England shared the increasing prosperity which was visible in the metropolis. New centres of industry acquired fresh importance, while the old boroughs, in which the county families had met together, either ceased to grow or began slowly to decay. § 2. Population and Representation Population was slowly gravitating to particular centres; and the House of Commons, while the country was changing, suddenly resisted further changes in its constitution. Before the seventeenth century the constitution of the House of Commons had been constantly altered. Henry VIII created seventeen new boroughs, Edward VI fourteen new boroughs, Mary ten new boroughs, Elizabeth twenty-four new boroughs, and James I four new boroughs. Charles II gave members to Durham and Newark; but, with this exception, no new borough was created, either in England or Wales, from the death of James I to the Reform Bill of 1832. The House of Commons, after the Restoration, took the issue of writs into its own hands, and declined to recognize those which had been issued by the crown. The constitution of the House of Commons was thus stereotyped, for the first time in English history, at the time at which the population of England was being collected in fresh centres. The representation of the people was becoming more unequal, and no attempt to redress the inequalities was made. At the period at which this history opens the House of Commons consisted of 658 members: 489 of these were returned by England, 100 by Ireland, 45 by Scotland, and 24 by Wales. The representation of England was more unequal than that of either of the other divisions of the kingdom. The 10 southern counties of England contained a population of about 2,900,000 souls, and returned 237 members to Parliament. The 30 other counties of England contained a population of more than 8,350,000 souls, and returned 252 members to Parliament. A little more than a fourth of the population returned very nearly one-half of the whole of the English representatives. Scotland contained a population of nearly 2,000,000 persons; Cornwall contained rather more than a quarter of a million of people. Yet all Scotland returned only 45 members, while the county of Cornwall returned 44. Representation then bore no proportion to population; and the population, as a matter of fact, had little or nothing to do with the representation. It was stated in 1793 that the majority of the House of Commons was "elected by less than 15,000 electors." Seventy members were elected by 34 places, in which "it would be to trifle with patience to mention any number of voters whatever, the election being notoriously a mere |