confidence of all Radicals and gain the support of the new country voters. On reading the signs in the political skies, as his colleague, John Morley, has put it, Mr. Gladstone determined that the new bill should be pressed on Parliament, and he introduced it himself in a studiously temperate speech.

stone's d fense of

popular

(1884)

I am not prepared to discuss admission to the franchise as it 295. Gla was discussed fifty years ago, when Lord John Russell had to state, with almost bated breath, that he expected to add in the Three Kingdoms 500,000 to the constituencies. It is not now suffrage a question of nicely calculated less or more. I take stand my on the broad principle that the enfranchisement of capable citizens, be they few or be they many, and if they be many, so much the better, gives an addition of strength to the State. The strength of the modern State lies in the representative system. I rejoice to think that in this happy country and under this happy constitution we have other sources of strength in the respect paid to various orders of the State, and in the authority they enjoy, and in the unbroken course which has been allowed to most of our national traditions; but still, in the main, it is the representative system which is the strength of the modern State in general, and of the State in this country in particular....

Sir, the only question that remains in the general argument is, Who are capable citizens? and, fortunately, that is a question which, on the present occasion, need not be argued at length, for it has been already settled, in the first place by a solemn legislative judgment acquiesced in by both parties in the State; and, in the second place, by the experience of the last more than fifteen years. Who, Sir, are the capable citizens of the State, whom it is proposed to enfranchise? It is proposed, in the main, to enfranchise the county population on the footing and according to the measure that has already been administered to the population of the towns.

What are the main constituents of the county population?

the county population

Character of the skilled laborers and artisans in all the common arts of 1 and especially in connection with our great mining indust Is there any doubt that these are capable citizens? Y honorable gentlemen opposite [i.e. the Conservatives] ha yourselves asserted it by enfranchising them in the towns; a we can only say that we heartily subscribe to the assertio But besides the artisans and the minor tradesmen scattere throughout our rural towns, we have also to deal with th peasantry of the country.

citizens

The peasants Is there any doubt that the peasantry of the country are are capable capable citizens, qualified for enfranchisement, qualified to make good use of their power as voters? This is a question which has been solved for us by the first and second Reform Bills; because many of the places which, under the name of towns, are now represented in this House are really rural communities, based upon a peasant constituency. For my part, I should be quite ready to fight the battle of a peasant upon general and argumentative grounds. I believe the peasant generally to be, not in the highest sense, but in a very real sense, a skilled laborer. He is not a man tied down to one mechanical exercise of his physical powers. He is a man who must do many things, and many things which require in him the exercise of active intelligence.

The new

Reform Bill not perfect

I say this is not a perfect bill with regard to the franchise. What are the questions we leave out? We do not aim at ideal but practical perfection, and I hope gentlemen will not force us upon that line; it would be the "road to ruin." I have heard that there have been artists and authors who never could satisfy themselves as to the perfection of their picture or of their diction, as the case may be, and in consequence the diction and the picture have been wasted. I remember a most venerable archbishop Archbishop Howley - who, with respect be it spoken, was the worst speaker in the House of Lords. And why? Because he was a man of inferior intellect? He was man of remarkable intellect, remarkable education, remarkable refinement; but, unfortunately, he had a taste so fastidious that he could never satisfy himself that his terms were perfect and his phrases entirely beyond criticism, and in consequence of

his fastidiousness between the one and the other, catastrophe befell him. No, Sir; ideal perfection is not the true basis of English legislation. We look at the attainable; we look at the practicable; and we have too much of English sense to be drawn away by those sanguine delineations of what might possibly be attained in Utopia, from a path which promises to enable us to effect great good for the people of England. ...

estimate

What does it do, and what does it do in comparison with The nur what has been done before? In 1832 there was passed what of new v was considered a Magna Carta of British liberties; but that Magna Carta of British liberties added, according to the previous estimate of Lord John Russell, 500,000, while according to the results considerably less than 500,000 were added to the entire constituency of the three countries. After 1832 we come to 1866. At that time the total constituency of the United Kingdom reached 1,364,000. By the bills which were passed between 1867 and 1868 that number was raised to 2,448,000. And now, Sir, under the action of the present law the constituency has reached in round numbers what I would call 3,000,000. I will not enter into details; but what is the increase we are going to make? There is a basis of computation, but it is a basis which affords, I admit, ground for conjecture and opinion. That basis of computation is the present ratio in towns, between inhabited houses and the number of town electors. Of course we have availed ourselves of that basis for the purpose of computation. I have gone into the matter as carefully as I can, and the best results I can attain are these. The bill, if it passes as presented, will add to the English constituency over 1,300,000 persons. It will add to the Scotch constituency, Scotland being at present rather better provided for in this respect than either of the other countries, over 200,ooo, and to the Irish constituency over 400,000; or, in the main, to the present aggregate constituency of the United Kingdom, taken at 3,000,000, it will add 2,000,000 more, nearly twice as much as was added since 1867, and more than four times as much as was added in lea Surely I say that

296. Glad

stone's description of cabinet

"Read your history in a nation's eyes," for you will ha deserved it by the benefits you will have conferred. You w have made this strong nation stronger still; stronger by i closer union without; stronger against its foes, if and when has any foes without; stronger within by union between clas and class, and by arraying all classes and all portions of the community in one solid compacted mass round the ancient Throne which it has loved so well, and round a constitution now to be more than ever powerful and more than ever free.

Section 81. The English Cabinet

It is a cardinal principle of modern democracy that the government has, in the last analysis, but one function, — namely, carrying out the will of the people by making and executing the laws of which the people approve. This notion is realized in England not only through the power of the Parliament to make laws, but also through its power to control a cabinet which is, after all, merely a group of departmental heads, charged with the execution of the law in various directions. This fusion of the executive and legislative powers, the most striking characteristic of the English constitution, is well described in an article by Mr. Gladstone.

The Federal Executive [in the United States] is born anew of the nation at the end of each four years, and dies at the end. But during the course of those years it is independent — in the government person both of the President and of his ministers - alike of the (condensed) people, of their representatives, and of that remarkable body,

the Senate of the United States. On the contrary, a vote of
the House of Commons, declaring a withdrawal of its confi-
dence, has always sufficed for the purpose of displacing a
Ministry; nay, persistent obstruction of its measures, and
even lighter causes, have conveyed the hint, which has been
obediently taken. But the people. how is it with them? Do

not the people in England part with their power, and make it over to the House of Commons, as completely as the American people part with it to the President? They give it over for four years, we for a period which on the average is somewhat more; they to resume it at a fixed time, we on an unfixed contingency and at a time which will finally be determined, not according to the popular will, but according to the views which a Ministry may entertain of its duty or convenience.

All this is true, but it is not the whole truth. In the United How the Kingdom the people as such cannot commonly act upon the English people Ministry as such. But mediately, though not immediately, influence they gain the end; for they can work upon that which works cabinet upon the Ministry, namely, on the House of Commons. Firstly, they have not renounced, like the American people, the exercise of their power for a given time; and they are at all times free, by speech, petition, public meeting, to endeavor to get it back in full by bringing about a dissolution. Secondly, in a Parliament with nearly 660 members, vacancies occur with tolerable frequency; and as they are commonly filled up forthwith, they continually modify the color of the Parliament, conformably not to the past but to the present feeling of the nation, or at least of the constituency, which for practical purposes is different indeed, yet not very different.

But besides exercising a limited positive influence on the Members present, they supply a much less limited indication of the Commons watch pub future. Of the members who at a given time sit in the House opinion of Commons, the vast majority, probably more than nine tenths, have the desire to sit there again, after a dissolution which may come at any moment. They therefore study political weather wisdom, and in varying degrees adapt themselves to the indications of the sky. It will now be readily perceived how the popular sentiment in England, so far as it is awake, is not meanly provided with the ways of making itself respected, whether for the purpose of displacing and

replacing a Ministry