Nearly all of our large towns might divided into districts, and return one or two members of Parliament for each, so that the working classes would really directly represented by at least fifty or sixty in the House of Commons. Such an arrangement would effect a good deal to advance all necessary reforms. At present very few indeed of the members are returned by the favour of the working men of this country. In the large cities we all know how it is at present. The representatives maintain personal relations with only a few of the leading men, and while they please them they are generally able to command their own reelection. We ought to have a few electoral districts without leading men at all, town constituencies which have no corporation, nor eminently rich and influential inhabitants to dictate to them or to regulate their electoral concerns, instead of allowing the people to work out the political problem of their representation for themselves, by means of meetings and consultations with each other. There are very few cities or towns in the kingdom which could not be so divided as to effect this object. As a rule the working classes live in one portion of our towns, and the wealthy and middle classes in another. It would be quite possible to select large districts in every tolerably large town which would contain hardly any other electors than those who belong to or serve the working classes. If these returned members independently of the other electors of the city, one of the most important interests in the country would have a body of representatives who would watch the legislation of the country for them and promote their objects, while they also advanced the general cause of progress and reform. Even in the metropolis a good deal could be effected by judiciously dividing the present constituencies into smaller districts, and conferring upon them the representation of such pocket boroughs as his Grace of MARLBOROUGH’s pet constituency of Woodstock, or the Duke of NORFOLK’s enslaved little town of Arundel. But in the provincial towns and cities in Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, &c., several working-class constituencies could be created in each, and in every town in the manufacturing districts at least one constituency of the same kind could be made without greatly interfering with the character of the representation of the rest of the town. With a slightly lowered franchise as many electors would vote in each district as formerly existed in the whole town, and we should at last have the working men of the kingdom fairly represented in Parliament.
Until, however, some definite aim and practical purpose is announced, the meetings of the National Reform Union at Manchester are not very likely to produce any very remarkable benefit for the cause. With the present arrangement of districts it is not likely that a mere extension of the franchise would create any great difference. Besides, the intended change is not in favour of those who have that distinct local habitation and name which forms always a great point in the history of progressive movements. It was from unenfranchised Birmingham, from Glasgow with the fifth part of a single member, and from the great Lancashire and Yorkshire manufacturing towns, headed by Manchester and Leeds, which did not possess a representative at all, that the great cry for the last reform arose and made itself heard within the walls of the unreformed Parliament at Westminster. If new districts are selected and pointed out distinctly as at present quite as little represented in reality in Parliament as Oldham, or Rochdale, or Paisley, or Wolverhampton, or Warrington, or the Tower Hamlets, or Finsbury were five-and-thirty years ago, there would probably be created a spirit and energy in favour of a change which hardly greets the present movement. To begin in this way would be less invidious, perhaps, than the commencement of a direct assault upon the electoral preserves of certain noblemen; or, at any rate, the campaign would be best carried on by a declaration both of a local want and a description of the best method of supplying it.
The old war cries of party are not exactly suitable at present for the safe management of a political campaign; although in some quarters not without considerable influence, and in their occasional expression greeted with hearty cheers. The recent meeting at Manchester, under the presidency of Mr. GEORGE WILSON, took no novel or very effective position in discussing the question. The speakers dealt in the old generalities, about which it is almost impossible to rouse a strong local feeling, nor even to give effective utterance to that which already exists. Not even Manchester will become earnest in remonstrance because only one million of electors existed in the United Kingdom, nor because one-half of the House of Commons is now returned by scarcely 200,000 of their number. But that Salford should have only one representative for its large and growing population of 150,000, while Bridgenorth with barely 6,000, Bodmin with less than 7,000, Wells with under 5,000, Thetford with hardly 4,000, Totnes with less than 4,000, Tewkesbury with 6,000, Richmond with about 5,000, Marlborough with 5,000, Ludlow with less than 6,000, Knaresborough with 6,000, Honiton with hardly 3,000, Devizes and Cockermouth with about 7,000 each, Cirencester with 6,000, &c., should each possess two representatives, is rather an aggravating circumstance.
The great city of Manchester itself is placed on a level with these insignificant boroughs, and its important suburbs rank with the family pocket-boroughs like Arundel, in which the Duke of Norfolk dictates to 200 electors; Bewdley, where the WINNINGTON family control a small constituency; Calne, where 150 electors do the bidding of the Marquis of LANSDOWNE; Droitwich, the PAKINGTON family borough, with 400 nominal electors; Eye, in Suffolk, where a population of about 2,000 are represented by a KERRISON-LAUNCESTON, where a few hundred electors obey the mandates of the Duke of NORTHUMBERLAND; the electoral preserves of the JOLLIFFE family, at Petersfield, with about 300 electors. Such insignificant places as Thirsk, Wareham, Westbury, Woodstock, &c., furnish additional instances of this deliberate comparison in electoral pretensions, with the independent and intelligent working-class population of the Salford suburb of Manchester. Why are not these instances urged upon the general attention of the local constituencies? It is to the new city constituencies that the small pocket boroughs should give up their electoral power. There are a thousand new interests created by manufacturing enterprise, which ought to be considered in such a case as the re-adjustment necessary for restoring the balance of electoral power in favour of the modern town populations. It was to favour these that in olden times small boroughs were so largely endowed with electoral rights. Each new manufacture as it creates wealth ought to possess a special representative, or more than one, in the House of Commons, and that can best be conferred by bestowing electoral rights in a far higher degree upon every city and town engaged in the trade. The agricultural interest is by its nature generally united in a decided political course. Their line of proceeding is easy, and laid down to their hand, but the industry of cities requires to be preserved from the frequent aggressions of Conservative financial policy, which would place an undue burden of taxation upon the shoulders of the enterprising manufacturers, and of those who work out the great commercial problems of modern days, either by new inventions or by their lowly industry. It is upon such grounds as these that the demands of the BENTINCK-DISRAELI school of politicians claiming every new seat for the country constituencies should, perhaps, be wholly met and refuted.