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THE REFORM BILL—ADJOURNED DEBATE.

     Sir W. JOLLIFFE having presented a petition from Petersfield against the bill, the debate on it was resumed.

     Mr. GOLDSMID said that he had to thank the hon. member for Petersfield (Sir W. Jolliffe) for having given way to him, but he thought as one of the members who had been designated ‟dying swans,” the house would conceive he was reasonably anxious to say a few words on the bill now before the house. The borough which he had the honour to represent was one of those small boroughs which were most particularly affected by the bill, so that when he spoke of it he also spoke of a large number of small boroughs which were in a similar position. He trusted the house would believe him when he said it was in no spirit of opposition to her Majesty’s government that he addressed them, for since he had had the honour of a seat in the house, and in the various contests he had had to obtain it he had always approved of Liberal principles, and desired to act with the great Liberal party, and therefore he trusted that her Majesty’s government would not consider he acted in a spirit of opposition. Before he proceeded further he wished to say that there were many hon. members who thought that the principle of population ought to guide them in distributing the seats. That was a position which he thought could not be properly maintained for a moment. There were several reasons why he held this opinion. It was merely one of the elements that should be considered, and he admitted it was an important element, but it was not the only one, because if they were guided by it alone they would be led into great difficulties, because the metropolitan boroughs, which now had 18 members, and would have 22 would be represented by as many as the entire kingdom of Scotland; the county of Middlesex, which now had two members, would, if the principle were adopted, have 20. Moreover, from another point of view the principle of population could not be followed, for they found according to statistics furnished them by the government, that Scotland would then have 69 members, whereas at the present it has only 53. England had 500, and would have on the principle of population 467, and Ireland would have 122, where it now had 105. He thought that if they were to follow this principle, which many hon. members he thought advocated simply because they had not looked to see what would be its results, they would find they were not following a guiding star, but an ignis fatuus. The bill, it appeared to him, was properly divided into two parts, the one disfranchising and the other enfranchising, and he would now deal with the first part. As he understood the proposal of her Majesty’s government it was to take 24 members from the Liberal and 25 from the opposite side of the house, and deal with the seats so obtained by a distribution amongst the counties and boroughs to be enfranchised. Therefore, as far as the disfranchising clauses of the bill went, it appeared to him the government had fairly treated the two sides of the house (no, no). Well, that was a matter of opinion. He thought it would be proper for him first to state his objections to the bill as it stood, and suggest if possible, a remedy which he thought might be approved by both sides of the house. He had endeavoured to consider this question as impartially as a member for a small borough could be expected to do, and his objection to the bill was that there was no principle adopted in the selection of boroughs not grouped. He understood that the government proposed that every borough below 8000 ought to be grouped; but he found on looking down the blue book furnished them by the government there were several boroughs below that line not grouped. He would take for example Bewdley and Droitwich; and he chose them because they were represented by two gentlemen of different politics. In 1861 the population of each of these was 7000; they were in the same county, a very few miles apart, and, according to the principles of the bill, he did not see why they could not have been properly grouped together, thus making a population of 14,000, that being below the second line the government had drawn, and thereby the government would have obtained one more seat to deal with. His second objection was that in many cases of these groups he could not discover the principle of geographical contiguity that was said to guide the government (hear, hear). He would give one or two instances from his own personal knowledge. He stood at the last election for Cirencester; it was proposed now to group with it Evesham and Tewkesbury. Evesham was about 25 miles from Cirencester, there was a hilly country between them, and no direct communication, and he believed the inhabitants of Cirencester hardly knew of the existence of Evesham. The two boroughs were connected by no tie, and the journey from one to the other was by a circuitous route by rail, occupying four hours and a half. Then, as to the group in which Honiton was; it was attached to Bridport, which was a maritime town, and Lyme, and between them there was no community of interest. Honiton was in the centre of an agricultural district, and had a large market, and fairly represented the majority of our country towns. The advantage of these small boroughs had been clearly demonstrated by a speech in this house by its leader in 1849. These places were grouped together, and were to receive one member. Now, he would ask the house to remember that at the present moment they had five members. Bridport had two, Honiton two, and Lyme one; and if any honourable gentleman would cast his eyes through the groups they would find that no other boroughs that had enjoyed the advantage of sending five members to the house had been treated so badly as these had. In every other case where there were more than four members belonging to the boroughs added together the government had given two members to the group. There was another group similarly situated to those he had mentioned—namely, Arundel, Horsham, and Midhurst, whose interests were as different as those of Cirencester and Evesham. The point he wished to urge on the house was that the government drew the line at 8000, and the principle of the government was, as far as possible, where geographical contiguity allowed to group the boroughs and give them one member, and where the population was over 15,000 it gave them two members. They also proposed, if a borough which returned either one or two members, and possessed at the last census a population of more than 8000, that borough should remain in undisturbed possession of its representation. He thought he would be able to show that this principle would not be quite fair; that according to that principle the same line should be drawn for the boroughs grouped as for those not grouped. The only principle on which the difference could be supposed to rest was the old maxim of law, "De minimis non curat lex ." There were nine boroughs with populations between 8000 and 10,000, namely, Chichester Guildford, Lewes, Maldon, Newark, Stamford, Tavistock, Windsor, and Wycombe. He thought it was unfortunate to find that a great majority of the representatives of these boroughs were Liberals; there were 14 Liberals and only four Conservatives. Another reason given for the line drawn in the government bill was that among the boroughs below 8000 inhabitants were many nomination boroughs. But were there not nomination boroughs with more than 8000? (hear, hear.) He knew at least three places of above 30,000 population, where practically one man returned the members. Therefore, by doing away with the boroughs below 8000, or by grouping them, they did not do away with nomination boroughs (hear, hear). His proposition would obviate many of these objections; and would deal fairly with the boroughs both above and below 8000. The right principle would be draw the line at as the government had done, below which any borough should no longer enjoy a distinct and separate representation. In the next place, he proposed that boroughs between 8000 and 10,000 inhabitants should have only one member. In the third place, all boroughs above 10,000, whether existing boroughs, or to be formed by grouping, should have two members. If the existing boroughs up to 10,000 inhabitants claimed, on the vested-right principle, to continue their representation, what were they to say of boroughs a short-distance from each other, having a united population much larger, and yet having only one representative? It seemed almost providential that the nine boroughs that would lose a member would supply the groups of boroughs up to 15,000. With regard to the second portion of the bill, the enfranchising portion he would remark that there were places like Middlesborough, Dewsbury, and Gravesend which were to have one member; there was a place called Croydon which had over 20,000 inhabitants that had no member at all. If, again, it was to be the rule to give a third member to counties having a population over 150,000, why should not the rule be applied to the county of Middlesex and in the metropolitan boroughs? As regarded Scotland, he was in favour of giving the proposed additional members. His proposition would not interfere with the measure of the government. He admitted that Honiton was over represented at present; but he trusted that the government would concede the claims of the group in which it was to be merged to two members. He, however, regarded the measure as one which was it desirable for the sake of the whole country to pass. It was a measure for the nation, not for a constituency; still less was it a matter in which he should give a vote for personal considerations. Her Majesty’s government had not given their views on the propositions which he had submitted to the house; and he thought it would be desirable that they should do so at an early period of the debate.