THE NEW REFORM BILL
LETTER VI
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I take another case. The borough of CHRISTCHURCH, Hants. According to the report of the Boundary Commissioners, it contained in 1831 a population of 1,509. ‟No trade or manufacture is carried on here. The town presents no symptom of activity or industry. The houses are of a middling description, and the appearance of the inhabitants, who are thinly scattered, gives no indication of prosperity. The number of houses worth 10l. a year does not exceed 130.” My lord, sum up this report in two words, and those words will express ‟rotten borough.” I am glad to quote the Commissioners’ report, because it puts it out of the power of any one to say that the framers of the Reform Act acted in these cases without sufficient information. It was with this report before them—with their eyes wide open as to what they were about—that the government of 1831 perpetuated this borough, and made a constituency for it by throwing in an extent of country of no less than thirty miles circumference. Christchurch borough at the present time extends from the boundary of Lymington to the boundary of Dorsetshire. Though the town is three miles distant from the sea, you may coast along the shores of the borough for some fourteen miles, beginning at the cliffs within the Solent, passing through the Needles, and sailing onward till you pass the spot which your lordship’s good taste has selected for retirement and quietude—l mean the lovely bathing-village of Bournemouth.
The circumference of Christchurch is 30 miles; that of PETERSFIELD, in another part of the same county, is nearer 40. This town boasted in 1821 of a population of 1,446; in 1831 that population, contrary to all the ordinary Malthusian calculations, had declined to 1,423. In the interval exactly one domicile was added to the edifices of the town; and, considering that the population had diminished, one would think that even this erection would have caused a panic among proprietors, and a consequent reduction in the rents. The Boundary Commissioners reported of Petersfield that there were only 84 qualifying houses in the place, and only 262 houses of any sort! They say ‟it has but little trade, and any consequence which it possesses arises entirely from its lying on the high road from London to Portsmouth.” At the present time I believe Peterefield lies about 20 miles off the high road from London to Portsmouth. In that point of view at least its importance since 1832 has not been augmented.
Here was another clear case of ‟rotten borough” with which your lordship might have dealt, and, according to your pledge, was bound to deal. But no; in defiance of every principle on which the Reform Act was based: in contravention of every pledge made to the people by its promoters, this borough was taken out of the original Schedule A, and a boundary was made for it extending 10 miles, at least, from north to south, and embracing, of course, the estate of the proprietor who now exercises the power of returning himself as the borough representative. I know not what good, my lord, you have done either to the nation or to the locality by allowing Petersfield to remain a borough. It has, since the Reform Act, been the scene of far worse electioneering strife than was ever known in it before. It has been almost ruined by the conflicts of which it has been the theatre; and, after all the battles it has seen, it is now precisely where it was in 1830—a rotten borough of Sir Wm. Jolliffe’s.
That exceedingly corrupt town of HORSHAM affords, my lord, a fourth illutration of the ill effects of the instruction of the 24th November, 1831. Horsham was reported by the Boundary Commissioners to be ‟a small and inconsiderable place, irregularly and poorly built, many of the houses being of timber, and rarely exceeding a single story in height. It is,” they say, ‟neither lighted nor watched, and very indifferently paved.” The population in 1831 was only 1,921, the total number of houses 344, the qualifying houses 130. The Commissioners were, nevertheless, instructed to find a boundary for Horsham. It was no easy matter to get it. After explaining all their difficulties, they threw the responsibility on government, thus :—‟Conformably to the new instructions we have received, and subject to them, we recommend, &c.” What they did recommend was an addition of a large agricultural district, extending 7 miles from north to south, and running 30 miles all round the country. Even in this great district only 350 electors can be now obtained.
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RUNNYMEDE.
(See also
16-Dec-1851
13-Dec-1851
13-Dec-1851
29-Nov-1851
14-Nov-1851)