LONDON, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30.
We have only to examine a few specimens of our representative system, applying as a test of the professions of members the way in which they have voted on the Ballot question, in order to arrive at once at strong reasons for a very great change in several respects. For instance, the original intention of the present arrangement was to have, in the Liberalism of the towns of the several districts, a counter weight against the too strict Conservatism of the county constituencies. But at present there is, in many of our electoral districts, no such healthy opposition. Let us take the county of Buckingham for an example, with its eleven members for a population considerably less than than of the metropolitan parish of St. Pancras, which has not at present the full power of returning one representative. Buckinghamshire has three county representatives, who all vote uniformly against the Ballot. The Tories, about ten years ago, were obliged to open their ranks and admit one Whig member for the county, but he, equally with the Tories, votes against the only measure which is calculated to set the country voters free from the domination of their landlords. In addition to those county representatives, there are eight members who sit for boroughs within the limits of the shire. The boroughs are four in number —Aylesbury, Buckingham, Great Marlow, and Chipping Wycombe, and their aggregate population is less than 50,000 inhabitants. Each borough has two representatives, and only two of of the eight—Sir RICHARD BETHELL, and Sir GEORGE DASHWOOD—vote for the protection of the electoral body by the Ballot. The other six members for those small rural towns, if such an expression may pass, all vote against what we must consider as the test of real Liberalism. Thus, in this rather prominent county, instead of the borough population being able to resist the squirearchical influences of the country districts, the matter is made much worse by their introduction.
Let us take another example, for instance, the county of Hants, which, with a population less than that of Marylebone, has eight times as many members. Hampshire is divided into two divisions, each of which has two county representatives. All the four members for the county vote against the Ballot. That is only to be expected when we consider, among other characteristics of this rather important county, that they formerly got rid of their old member, Lord PALMERSTON, as too liberal for their taste. In addition to the votes of the four county members against the freedom of their constituents, eight of the representatives for the boroughs of this district vote against the measure. The representatives of Andover, Christchurch, and Petersfield, three small insignificant places, with a united population of about 16,000, and forming as strong a body in the senate aa the members for London itself, indeed somewhat stronger, for they are united in the Tory interest, vote invariably against Mr. BERKELEY’S motion. The small places of Lymington and Winchester each send one opponent of the Ballot, the latter having managed, for the present, to get a friend of the measure as one of its members. Portsmouth, too, from an old traditionary Whig feeling in favour of its ancient official member, continues to falsify the really liberal feelings of the largest part of its population by sending two opponents of this measure to Parliament. Thus, in the whole county we have only one thoroughly liberal constituency, Southampton, which sends two members in favour of this popular measure. Instead of the borough constituencies of Hampshire, as at present arranged, assisting to strike a balance in favour of the people against the privileged classes, we find it here as in so many other instances, quite the other way. In addition to the four county members, eight of the twelve borough members of the shire oppose the Ballot, and only three are suffered to be in favour of it.
Then, in the agricultural county of Lincoln we have another striking instance of the same sort of thing. Of thirteen members, four are county representatives and generally vote against the Ballot, and most certainly never for it. For the five boroughs or towns in the shire, with nine members to represent them in Parliament, eight vote against the Ballot, and one only in favour of it. There is nothing like proper balancing here.
So in Hertfordshire, the borough votes with the county against the measure, and indeed more completely so, for one of the county members has never voted against it. In Huntingdonshire it is the same, both borough and county members taking the unpopular side of this question.
In Cambridgeshire one of the county members, Mr. ADEANE, votes for the Ballot, while the two Tory members vote against it; but the four other members connected with the county vote on the Tory side.
In Cumberland there is only one of the six borough representatives, Mr. TRUEMAN, M.P. for Helstone, who resists the aristocracy on this vital question. Sir JAMES GRAHAM, indeed, seems lately to have shown some of his customary instincts in favour of coming successes, for he has not voted against the Ballot in the present Parliament.
In a great many counties besides these, the state of matters with regard to this supposed balancing of town and country influences is equally one-sided in favour of the present prevailing influence, whatever that may be, in country districts. In a good many the Liberal and Conservative tendencies are balanced. Thus in the great agricultural county of Dorset, one-half of the borough members are in favour of protection to the voter, and the other half are opposed to it. So also in Durham, where the extensive mining and commercial interest is also able to divide the county representation on this subject. In Berkshire and Cheshire the borough representation is also nearly divided with equal force on this particular subject; and as we approach the borders of the Principality of Wales, we find it much the same in Herefordshire, and other districts. In Monmouthshire again, the borough and county members are quite agreed on the unpopular side of this question.
Thus we find all throughout England, that wherever a borough or city population is really and earnestly Liberal, there is either some greater importance in the constituency itself, or else some other influence than that of the general authorities of the country districts comes into operation. But nothing is plainer than that, by present arrangements, the purpose supposed to be served by the borough constituencies of protecting the interests of the people in general, is very inadequately accomplished at any considerable distance from the great commercial cities.
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A great deal of mystification, and, as usual in such matters, a great deal of misrepresentation, is being employed, in order to strip the question of tenant-right of its true character—a question, we beg our readers to observe, not by any means confined to Irish interests, but quite as applicable to the English tenant farmer as to the Irish one. We beg, also, to assure them, that nothing in the world can be more simple, straightforward, and honest than this right; and that a principle which is represented as meaning nothing less than confiscation in Ireland has long obtained as a custom in many parts England. We are told that the advocates of tenant-right aim at reversing the positions of landlord and tenant, and ousting the former from his possessions in favour of the latter. If a falsehood is necessary in order to bolster up a bad case one may just as well manufacture a big one as a small one. And it must be admitted that anything more extensive in the way of invention and falsehood can hardly be imagined than the arguments and positions advanced against the just claims of the Irish tenant farmers.
To argue this question on just principles, we might begin by recalling the recognised truth that property has its duties as well as its rights; a law especially applicable to land, the most stable and uniformly fruitful of all property. What then are the duties which attach to the proprietorship of land, and which, being duties, are obligatory in point of morals, whether obligatory in point of law or not? One of the very first is, that it should be made applicable to the uses for which Nature intended it; that it shall grow food for the people who live upon it; that it shall not be depopulated; that human beings shall not be made to give place to sheep or deer. But in many parts of Ireland this is being done. Eviction is at work, and hamlets are being cleared, devastated, in order that the proprietor may be alone in his glory. It is the want of tenant-right which gives him power to violate this first duty of property. Scotland has felt this as well as Ireland. The question therefore is not a local question—though if it were, that would not lessen it claims so long as it were just. The opponents of tenant right would leave a proprietor the power of pursuing this iniquitous course. They would allow him, in the fullest sense of the term, to do what he likes with his own; not regarding the fact that, in point of morality, land can never in this sense belong to any one. There is no case in which proprietorship is more fettered with the obligations of stewardship than in the case of land. Morally this is so, but not legally.
Another obligation is that the land shall be improved. The very term ‟cultivation” implies this. And it follows that if tenants improve their land, they shall in some way or other receive the benefit of their improvements. This is a very simple matter. It needs no circumlocution. It lies in a nutshell, and is as evidently true as that the labourer is worthy of his hire. But this is only morally a right, and the advocates of tenant-right wish to make it legally one also. That is their crime. They will not leave the power of compensation or no compensation in the hands of the proprietor, because then it ceases to be a right, and becomes the means of oppression. Practically, indeed, it is in that case nothing; for the landlord takes the tenant’s improvements, and if compensation is demanded, replies, ‟You were not asked to make them.” Then arises the question, shall a landlord be at the mercy of his tenant, who may multiply improvements till they leave no margin of profit? This argument answers itself from its very absurdity, because improvements that produce no profit are not improvements.
But proprietors are to be protected. More than that, they are not to be dictated to. They may do what they like with their own, and if tenants are rash enough to improve land which does not belong to them they are to take the consequences, and fall by their own imprudence. But clearly this improvement of land is an act in which the public at large have an interest, and is it to be tolerated that the public weal shall be sacrificed in order to prop up a series of petty despotisms? Surely it was never intended that the acts which have depopulated Glen Tilt should be protected by society. But Glen Tilt has many a counterpart in Ireland; and it is a question which we should seriously lay to heart whether the state of society in the sister country can ever be reliable so long as the law leaves it in the power of landlords to do what they like with their own, whether what they like is right or wrong. Midnight arrests and special commissions doubtless betoken a prompt-handed Government, and may be necessary upon occasions; but they savour rather of France and Naples than of Great Britain. Wisdom and patriotism warn us to avoid the necessity for such strong measures. Let us, at all events, be just; and when we have removed abuses of which our agricultural people have a marked right to complain, we may then with a clear conscience inflict on the headstrong whatever penalties their acts may have involved them in.
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The question of the right either of Search or Visit must not be regarded as settled in a manner satisfactory to this or any other country really intent on the suppression of the slave trade, and we must confess that we cannot be content with the manner in which it has been slurred over in the Address of the President of the UNITED STATES. We not claim any right to board or visit a vessel belonging to the United States for the purpose of overhauling the cargo, or ascertaining whether she has slaves on board. We cannot, however, be satisfied to regard every vessel hoisting the standard of the Union as really belonging to the great Western Republic. The Government of that Republic knows as well as we know the truth of Lord MALMESBURY’s statement, that fraud has been exercised by pirates of every country, and that the flags of those nations with which Great Britain has no slave treaties are the more frequently prostituted by those enemies of mankind. Neither can they deny, as they have been reminded, that ‟the American flag has constantly been desecrated to protect the nefarious practices of such men.” In these circumstances we look, as we are entitled to look, to the United States for some hearty co-operation with us, in our endeavour to prevent the pirates of other countries from carrying on the nefarious traffic in man under the flag of the United States.
We think that America, for her own honour, and for the interests of humanity, ought not to leave the matter where it is, and throw upon us the whole onus of initiating a measure which removes the existing difficulty. She ought to feel quite as much a desire to prevent her flag from being subordinated to the uses of slavery, as we have shown of honest determination not to interfere with her free use of the seas as the highway of legitimate commerce. A gentleman of honour and honesty, if he knew that his appearance were counterfeited for the purpose of fraud, would not be satisfied with declaring his own right to pass along the streets without interruption or annoyance; he would naturally thank any one for informing him of the injustice done to his reputation, and would eagerly join with his informant in trying to bring the impostor to light. He would seem almost to sympathise with the rogue if he said,—I shall do nothing to secure his detection. You must not look to me to take the initiative. Do what you please yourself, only have a care that, in your efforts to detect the impostor, you never lay hands on me, for if you make this mistake it will be at your peril.
Mr. BUCHANAN and his Government have been faithfully warned of the use which will be made of their refusal to enter into this matter heartily, and to co-operate with us in the effort to put down the worst kind of slavery. They are told that, as the consequence, ‟The United States flag will be the only one to which these malefactors will have recourse for security, and that the sight and approach of that now honoured banner on the high seas will eventually become the cause of just suspicion and alarm to the lawful but defenceless trader.”
Why can there not be a cordial agreement between both Governments as to the conduct that should be followed in those cases in which there were reasonable grounds for suspicion that the banner of the stripes and stars was assumed by some piratical vessel. If it happened that the flag of England was used by pirates for their purpose, we venture to assert that a United States commander might adopt means for testing the justice of his suspicions, without exciting any disturbance between his country and our own. It would only be necessary that we should both agree as to what constituted reasonable grounds of suspicions; as to the course that should be taken for making the visit or the search, and the manner in which either the one or the other should be conducted; and as to the apology that should be accepted if the suspicion proved to be unfounded. If it were ascertained that an officer was not justified in the suspicions he professed to entertain—if he unnecessarily gave annoyance or offence in conducting his search—if he in any way violated the directions previously agreed upon by both countries, then he might be tried for his offence, and punished, if found guilty, without any insult being given, or any offence taken, by the Government on either side. Now why do not our American brethren and allies enter into the matter in this way? If we must—though we cannot see why—take the initiative, we should be glad if Lord MALMESBURY would propose such a course to the United States Government.
We differ from Lord MALMESBURY in his admission, rather clumsily expressed, that ‟it is one extremely dangerous to entrust, and onerous to bear, that an exact definition of what each respective State would permit for verifying nationality, and thereby securing general trade against piracy, should be agreed upon between Great Britain and the United States, and clearly embodied in their instructions to their national commanders.” We would urge his lordship, while the matter is under calm and friendly discussion, to propose a certain course which might be pursued by the naval commanders on both sides, and which indeed it should be their duty to pursue in all cases in which the flag of either nations appeared to be used for piratical purposes. The PRESIDENT tells us how deeply ‟he regrets that the flag of the United States has ever been prostituted” by the pirates who use it for the contraband trade in humanity. We should like to relieve him and his fellow citizens from all occasion for such regret in future; and if Lord MALMESBURY, instead of indulging in a very lengthy correspondence, will now come to the point in the manner we have proposed, he will have the full benefit of all that sincere regret of which the PRESIDENT speaks. If he fails to adopt this course, he will strengthen the conviction that England would be much better served if he would resign the Foreign Office in favour of a wiser man.