Reform Movement

The disabilities imposed by law severely restricted both the electors and the elected. Apart from women, children, lunatics, paupers or convicted criminals, the Nonconformists, the Roman Catholics, the Quakers, the Jews and agnostics could neither vote nor be elected. In the counties neither leaseholders nor copy holders, however wealthy, could vote. Prosperous cities such as Birmingham or Manchester, which had come into existence since 1600, had no representation, while Old Sarum with seven, or Dun wich, half under the sea, with 14 voters, returned respectively two members apiece. Even in 1714 it was abundantly clear that mem bers of parliament did not represent their constituencies, and that the constituencies still more did not represent the nation. It was estimated in 1793 that, with a population of some eight and a half millions, 257 members (i.e., a majority of the House of Commons) were returned by 11,05 electors; that in 51 constitu encies there were less than 5o voters, and that 13o boroughs had less than 30o electors apiece; and that whereas 92 county mem bers were returned by 130,000 voters, 84,00o electors in the bor oughs had 421 representatives. "The rotten boroughs," i.e., those which were completely under the control of the Crown or a patron, were admittedly the most indefensible parts of this parody of principles and facts.

The Society of the Friends of the People undertook, in 1793, to prove that the lords of the Treasury, 71 peers and 82 com moners could together nominate 3o6 out of 558 members, i.e., make a decisive majority. The influence of the Crown, i.e., of the Government—through the patronage of the navy, army, Church, judiciary, civil and colonial services—was enormous, and secured the steady voting support in the Commons without which no ad ministration considered itself safe or even possible. In 1770 there were 192 place-holders in the Commons. "Vested interests" in the whole system, indeed, were so strong and deeply-rooted that nothing short of a complete organic change in the social and economic structure could compel a House of Commons to accept "reform" which meant the extirpation of a half of those who sat in it, with the lucrative possibilities that membership offered. It follows from this brief summary that the would-be "reformer" of the 18th century, with so large and easy a target to attack, but which covered such a variety of interests, had really to prove that the "system" resulted in bad government, and that in the major issues of the national life the welfare of the unrepresented was more important than the welfare of the minority and was being continually sacrificed to it. Before the political theory of Locke, Blackstone and Burke could be dissolved a new political theory had to be created and absorbed. The Reform movement had by 183o produced such a new theory, with a re-interpretation both of the ends and methods of popular government and civil society under a limited monarchy—but it was not until i790 when Whiggism had been dissolved once and for all by the corrosive acids of the Industrial and French Revolutions that the school of Godwin, Priestley and Price, above all of Adam Smith and Ben tham, had captured the best minds alike of the old gentry and the new individualists. In 1832 a true revolution was accomplished with less bloodshed and disturbance than "the glorious revolu tion" of 1688, and as in 1688 so in 1832, the monarchy entered on a new lease of life, influence and prestige.

The First Phase (1714-65).

In the Walpole and Bolingbroke era (1714-4o) "reform" was the cry of the broken and discred ited Tories or the schismatic Whigs, who denounced the corruption by which they asserted Walpole maintained his power, or who demanded the repeal of the Septennial Act and a return of the Triennial Act, or even to the annual parliaments of a "golden middle-age." The agitation, which had no support outside West minster, had no effect on the general acquiescence in parliaments with a legal duration of seven years, and resulted only in a very limited Place bill, disfranchising a few hundreds of place-men. The elder Pitt gave a new life and a new power to the Reform move ment, due to his prestige, his disinterestedness, the splendour of his achievements, and his criticism of effete or flabby government. But Pitt was neither a consistent political thinker nor a practical and constructive administrator, capable of creating and leading a party with a coherent and thought-out programme of internal reform. He accepted the Whig view that "representation was not of persons but of property," and that "the share of national burdens (i.e., taxation of property) should decide the weight it ought to have in the political balance." He accepted "the rotten boroughs" (for one of which he had sat) as "the natural infirmity of the Constitution." "Amputation might be death." Pitt's sole remedy for "the corruption of the people and the ambition of the Crown" was to add a third member to the county representation, "the purest part of the system," and to revert to triennial parlia ments. Neither of these remedies was seriously pressed, though they became a traditional formula for the Chathamite and Rock ingham Whigs.

Cartwright, 1763-80.

John Wilkes, demagogue and the pop ular hero of the struggle against general warrants, for the rights of the electors in the Middlesex election and for the right to report debates in parliament, with John Cartwright, the brother of the inventor of the power-loom, were, in 1776, the joint but independent "fathers" of the real Reform movement, i.e., a de mand not merely to eliminate the rotten elements, but by an ex tension of the franchise and a redistribution of seats to secure "a just and equal representation of the people." Wilkes and Cart wright pinned reform down to these points—disfranchisement, enfranchisement and redistribution—on the basis of two demo cratic principles, that government was for the good of the governed and that rich and poor alike had equal rights and an equal interest in determining laws and government affecting their lives, for tunes and happiness. The Reform Act of 1832 was thus f ore shadowed in embryo in 1776, the year of the Declaration of Ameri can Independence, of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, and Ben tham's Fragment on Government. Cartwright, also, by founding The Society of the Supporters of the Bill of Rights was the parent of a new political method, the organized league for propaganda, education and consolidation of a group with a defined and agreed programme. Radicalism, in short, as a theory of political life and a constructive political machine, was born in 1776. Cart wright's society was the fruitful mother of many leagues, soci eties and federations down to the Free Trade League of 1837, the "Birmingham Caucus" of 1878, and the party organizations of to-day.