THE NEW REFORM.

AMID all the discussion which the Redistribution Bill has excited, it is no slight consolation to know that the enfranchisement of two millions of men no longer depends on the fate of that measure. The Franchise Bill has been converted into the Representation of the People Act, and from the 1st of January every man in the United Kingdom who occupies a house, however humble, or, indeed, a distinguishable residence of any kind, will be entitled to vote in the election of the people's representatives. This is a great and easy victory for the persons most interested, the newly enfranchised themselves, and it is a result on which the Government may be very cordially congratulated. If they have not been able to effect it so soon as they intended, they have brought it about in the way they desired and without making any greater concessions to their opponents than might have been fairly expected in any case if an Act for the redistribution of seats must also be passed before the expiration of the present Parliament. Now, every one is asking what the new voters will do at the next election, and the majority of those to whom the question is put content themselves with the safe and prudent, if somewhat unsatisfactory, answer, 'We shall see.' But for some of us it may be too late to see when the elections are all over, and one may be excused therefore for indulging in a little harmless speculation.

The new voters have, no doubt, different interests in different parts of the country, the mining districts of the North, for example, as compared with the agricultural districts of the South. Nevertheless I do not hesitate to affirm that the key to the political action of the new rural electors is to be found in the land question. Just five years ago, I gave, in the pages of this Review,' a forecast of the trouble then impending in Ireland on the same question, and suggested certain legislative remedies. The bitter struggle

between landlord and tenant in that country, which followed, and the provisions contained in the Land Act of 1881, have shown that my predictions were warranted, and that the measures I suggested, every one of which was embodied in that Act, were deemed necessary

1 December 1879.

by Parliament. I do not suppose for a moment that the fight for the land in Great Britain will be so fierce as it has been in Ireland, or that it will engender such bitter hatred and animosity between classes, or involve such a disruption of social bonds; but it is coming for all that, and public men must be prepared to declare their attitude in regard to it.

The agricultural classes are suffering from prolonged depression, which the state of mind induced by uninterrrupted prosperity in former times makes it difficult for them to bear, and each section has its own peculiar remedy with a view to its own relief. The agricultural labourer seeks higher wages and better housing; the farmer, who finds it very hard to pay the wages now given, calls loudly for a reduction of rent, and the landlord, who knows that he cannot extract any more than he now receives from the classes below him, turns round on the community at large and demands relief through the medium of a protective tariff, denominated Fair-trade. These classes, who clamour for land legislation, have been reinforced lately by the town artisans, who have learnt that they too have an interest in the land, and that it can perhaps be subserved by the application of Mr. George's doctrine, without putting them to the hardship of either occupying or cultivating the soil.

It would be foreign to my present purpose to inquire into the merits of any of these indications of opinion, but I think it may be safely predicted that whatever legislation respecting the land the immediate future may have in store for us will be directed from that quarter which possesses the largest amount of political power. The ideas which are backed by votes will assuredly make their way to the statute-book. And if much of the voting power in the counties. will henceforth rest with the agricultural labourers, the land legislation of the future will be conceived largely in their interest. Something may be done for the landlord by lessening the burden of local taxation, and for the farmer by fixity of tenure and compensation for improvements; but the actual cultivator will be the special ward of the new Parliament, and legislation will not be wanting to sanction the doctrine that he has the first claim on the produce of the soil. It is not unlikely that his enfranchisement will give an impetus to the movement for the disestablishment of the Church, concerning which he may now appear to be cold and somewhat indifferent. He will learn what a burning question that is in the minds of many of his fellow-countrymen, though, for the moment, his political horizon is bounded by the farm on which he daily labours, and his hopes are centred in the prospect of a comfortable cottage rising up on a little plot of land that he can call his own.

Although the extension of the franchise on so wide a basis as that of the new Act must undoubtedly lead to important legislation, and although it almost doubles the size of the present electorate, it is a

measure of far less significance than the Redistribution Bill which has yet to be passed into law. I do not speak so much of those provisions of the Bill which effect an enormous transfer of power by the partial or complete disfranchisement of the small boroughs, and by which an increase of power is given to the larger constituencies. It is true that the abolition of no less than 160 seats, and the consequent extinction of boroughs many of which are as old as Parliament itself, is a sweeping measure; and the distribution of ninety-six of these seats over the large counties, and of sixty-four of them over the large boroughs of the kingdom, is a change of considerable magnitude.

But the essential character of the Bill does not lie here; it lies in the clauses by which the future representation of the people is to be created out of one-member constituencies. It is calculated that out of the whole 670 members of the new House of Commons, not more than fifty will be elected from undivided boroughs; the remainder, excluding the members for the Universities, being elected for single divisions of boroughs and counties. This is a change the consequences of which it is of course impossible to foretell with certainty; but I believe they will be on the whole beneficial, and I can see no solid ground for the alarm with which some good persons regard the proposal.

First, as to its effect on the position of parties, my impression is that both in Scotland and Ireland it is the only plan, short of proportional representation, which gives the minority any fair chance. Where popular opinion goes almost entirely to one side, a natural counteracting influence is to be found in local considerations or personal character; and the smaller the constituency, the greater the chance of anyone who appeals to these influences rather than to popular sympathies. As regards England, it seems to be generally admitted that the single-member plan will work out loss and gain reciprocally to both parties. The Liberals have generally carried all before them in the large boroughs, because in them the great body of opinion has been on their side, and the Conservative minority, having been merged in the Liberal mass, was unable to assert itself. For a similar reason the Conservatives have largely monopolised the county representation, and the Liberal minority in the counties has been overborne. The single-member constituency will help to redress the uneven balance of superior numbers in boroughs and counties alike, and as far as it affects party prospects, neither party, it seems to me, has any right to complain.

It is contended, however, that the single-member plan will have a deteriorating effect on the character of future parliaments, that candidates of an inferior description will be elected in single districts in preference to better men, and that the new representation will be proportionately degraded. If this were so, there is nothing in the other provisions of the Bill, nor in the Franchise Act by which it has been preceded, that could compensate the country for the injury about to be VOL. XVII.- No. 95.

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inflicted upon it. If this were so, it were better that the question of Parliamentary reform had not been reopened at all in our day. The evils of a restricted franchise and an unequal distribution of political power are little in comparison with the calamity of a degraded legislature.

But it is not so. Our small constituencies have hitherto returned to Parliament members quite as well qualified in every way for their position as those sent up by the large constituencies. I am aware it is said that the small ones have had hitherto a distinctive position and character. Were they never so small, each was an organised community with a history and character peculiar to itself. True; but it is not always for good that a town should have a history and character of its own making. It is well sometimes that its history and character should receive their strongest impressions from the general life of the country and the general current of public affairs. Between centralisation and decentralisation, let us stand on the medium line. It will be well then to merge the small boroughs in the counties to which they belong, for what is required here is more centralisation. In the large boroughs and counties division can do no harm, for here we require less centralisation, and division is a good in itself, as a means of enabling the minority to be represented. The truest development of public character may be looked for where there is a happy mixture of local and national feeling. The one is as necessary to quicken individual sympathies as the other is to broaden patriotic aspirations. The unit of electoral power may therefore be too large as well as too small, and perfect representation is most likely to be had where the unit is neither the one nor the other. Small towns have attracted good candidates hitherto, not because candidates have been struck with the beauty of the distinctive character of the towns of their choice, but for the more prosaic reason of avoiding trouble and expense. The worry and anxiety inseparable from a contest in a large constituency have deterred many excellent men from becoming candidates; and a still larger number have been deterred by the enormous expenditure which, prior to the passing of the Corrupt Practices Act, such a candidature necessarily involved. These are the circumstances, together with others that may be described as purely local and accidental, which have enabled small constituencies to secure the services of capable representatives, and they will operate as powerfully in the same direction in the small divisions of the future as in the small towns of the past.

Now, a word as to the single-member plan in its relation to the caucus. No one who values the character of public life would wish to see the electorate controlled mechanically by the party agents, either Liberal or Conservative. The electors are not to be drilled like soldiers, or whipped like schoolboys, before they can learn to discharge their duties.

If the word 'election' does not imply freedom absolute and unfettered, the boasted privilege of an enfranchised citizen is a sham and a fraud. But our choice, unfortunately, does not lie between the caucus and freedom, but between the caucus and the coterie. Shall the candidature for our electoral division be determined by a few mutual friends assembled in a bar parlour, or in the library of the rich man's house, or by the elected managers of the party to which we belong? The former method is nomination by the coterie, the latter nomination by the caucus, and I have no hesitation in saying that I prefer the method of the caucus, if I must choose between the two; but what I most desire to see is a state of things in which the constituency will have some protection against undue influence proceeding from either quarter.

A large constituency is more easily managed by the wire-pulling of political organisations, a small one by the power of local coteries. The new single-member divisions, excluding the small boroughs whose lease of power is renewed temporarily by the Redistribution Bill, will have a population averaging 50,000, a number not so small as to be favourable to the growth of coteries, and not so large as to make the electors indifferent to the proceedings of the caucus. There is a greater variety of political opinion in England than is to be found either in Scotland or Ireland, and it is distributed geographically. The Conservative lines are generally traceable in the counties, the Liberal in the boroughs, and the single-member system seems well adapted to produce an even balance of the two parties. It cannot be denied, however, that the single-member system may leave a very considerable minority unrepresented in many divisions, and this brings us to the demand put forward by the advocates of proportional representation. I take it for granted that if a minority be so small as not to be able to make a stand anywhere throughout the whole country, it is not desirable that exceptional means should be adopted to give it exceptional opportunities for declaring itself. The proposal to enable small minorities, scattered all over the country, to give a joint national vote in favour of a particular candidate does not demand serious attention. It is admitted that it would not accomplish the object its author had in view, and that it might be used so as to produce a result the very opposite to what he desired. The scheme advocated by Mr. Courtney, Sir John Lubbock, Mr. Albert Grey and others is of a different character, although it has been described as not only impracticable but unintelligible. I suspect that this description was conceived out of downright good humour, to raise a laugh on beaming faces which might otherwise be shaded in the too prevalent gloom of political controversy.

'Life,' it has been said, 'would be tolerable but for its amuse

Be this true or not, I know politics would be intolerable but for its amusements. And it does one's heart good to see