L A.D. 1835.] CHARACTER OF LORD MELBOURNE. Great efforts were at this time unceasingly made to damage the new government through O'Connell. The London Post, Herald, and Standard, as well as the tory press throughout the country, were daily filled with attacks upon him. A polemical crusade was organised in Ireland, which had in it a strong mixture of the political element. The Rev. Mortimer O'Sullivan, the Rev. Robert M'Ghee, and captain Gordon-a Scotchman, who became member for the borough of Dundalk-were the ablest and most active leaders of this movement. The armoury from which they drew most of their weapons was a work on "Systematic Theology," by Peter Dens, which advocated the divine right of catholic kings, the lawfulness of breaking faith with heretics for the interest of the church, and a great deal of casuistical matter connected with the confessional, which, when deprived of the decent veil of the Latin in which it was written, and translated into English, was a sort of reading not at all suited to the female sex, nor edifying to the youth of the land. Yet the protestant agitators, in their zeal, did all in their power to give it publicity. These matters were made to tell with peculiar force against the government of lord Mulgrave in Ireland. Shortly after Sir Robert Peel's retirement from office, a public dinner was given to him in the Merchant Tailors' Hall, to which the duke of Wellington and other leading conservatives were invited. On the morning before the banquet, the following placard was posted up in a conspicuous part of the city:-"Poor men, take notice! A dinner to Peel will be given by the rump of the Pitt and plunder faction, assisted by the self-elected and corrupt courts of assistants of the grocers, tailors, goldsmiths, and skinners; seven city aldermen, seven poverty-stricken peers, twenty-nine defeated candidates, three bishops, a bloated buffoon, the idiot, and a mayor, on Monday next, May the 11th. The expenses to be defrayed out of the funds left for charitable purposes." This placard was denounced as a false and scandalous libel on the wealth and intelligence of the metropolis. The conservative journals stated that the dinner was attended by the principal merchants in London, and that speeches of a strong conservative character were received with universal applause. Sir Robert Peel addressed the meeting at considerable length, and it was on this occasion he uttered the memorable sentence which tructified so well for the benefit of his party. "The battle of the constitution must be fought at the registries." He dwelt upon the fact, that henceforth the house of commons must be the dominant power in the state, and that a party that aspired to rule the destinies of this country must pay particular and incessant attention to the elective franchise. It was not till the 18th of April that lord Melbourne was able to announce the completion of his arrangements. In forming his cabinet he had to contend with difficulties "peculiarly great and arduous, and some of them of a severe and mortifying nature." He had no change of policy to announce. "His government would be based upon the principles of a safe, prudent, and truly efficient 261 reform-principles, the tendency of which was not to subvert or endanger, but, on the contrary, to improve, strengthen, and establish, the institutions of the country; and in regard to ecclesiastical government, every measure contemplated in reference to that subject would have for its end the increase of true piety and religion through the whole of his majesty's dominions." From the disposition and character popularly ascribed to lord Melbourne, it could not be expected that he should prove an energetic reformer. The earl of Derby mentions a saying of his which often escaped him as a member of lord Grey's cabinet. When they had to encounter a difficulty, he would say, "Can't you let it alone?" This accords with the portrait of him presented by Sydney Smith. "Lord Melbourne," he said, "declared himself quite satisfied with the church as it stood; but if the public had any desire to alter it, they might do so if they pleased. He might have said the same thing of the monarchy or of any other institution, and there is in the declaration a permissiveness and good humour which in public men has seldom been exceeded. Carelessness, however, is but a poor imitation of genius; and the formation of a wise and well-reflected plan of reform conduces more to the lasting fame of a minister than the affected contempt of duty which every man sees to be mere vanity, and a vanity of no very high description. Everything about him seems to betoken careless desolation; every one would suppose from his manner that he was playing at chuckfarthing with human happiness, that he would giggle away the great charter, and decide by the method of teetotum whether my lords the bishops should retain their seats in the house of lords. All this is the mere vanity of surprising and making us believe he can play with kingdoms as other men can with nine-pins. I cannot, however, allow to this minister the merit of indifference to his actions. I believe him to be conscientiously alive to the good or the evil he is doing, and that his caution has more than once arrested the gigantic projects of the Lycurgus of the lower house. I am sorry to be obliged to brush away the magnificent fabric of levity and gaiety he has reared; but while I accuse our minister of honesty and diligence, I deny that he is careless or rash; he is nothing more than a man of good understanding and good principles, disguised in the eternal and somewhat wearisome affectation of a political roué." * Notwithstanding the careless manner thus ridiculed, there was much sincerity in the nature of lord Melbourne; and there is no doubt that he laboured with an honest purpose to make his administration useful to the country, though not with so much activity and energy, or with such constant solicitude to secure success, as his predecessor had brought to the task. As it was now advancing towards the end of the session, he confined his attention to two great measures of reform-the Irish tithe question (of which we have already disposed) and the question of municipal reform. It is scarcely necessary to remark that abuses in corporations had been a matter of constant and general complaint for two centuries. But it was hopeless * Sydney Smith's Works, vol. lii., p. 216. to expect a remedy so long as the parliamentary representation was so inadequate and corrupt. The rotten and venal boroughs, of which the franchise was abolished or amended by the Reform Act, were the chief seats of abuse. The correction of the local evil would have been the destruction of the system by which the ruling party in the state sustained its political power. There were, therefore, the most powerful interests at work, restraining each from attempting the work of reform; but by the parliamentary Reform Act these interests were abolished, and those local fountains of corruption could no longer pour their foetid contents into the legislature. Statesmen now felt at liberty to abate those nuisances. Yet the work was not as speedily accomplished as might have been expected. It is true that lord Grey advised the king to issue a commission of inquiry in July, 1833, but it was not until the 5th of June, 1835, that any measure was brought forward upon the subject. The commission consisted of twenty gentlemen, who were to proceed with the utmost dispatch to inquire as to the existing state of the municipal corporations in England and Wales, and to collect information respecting the defects in their constitution, to make inquiry into their jurisdiction and powers as to the administration of justice, and in all other respects; and also into the mode of electing and appointing the members and officers of such corporations, into the privileges of the freemen and other members thereof, and into the nature and management of the income, revenues, and funds of the said corporations. They divided the whole of England and Wales into districts, each of which was assigned to two commissioners. Their reports on individual corporations occupied five folio volumes. The whole was presented in a general report, signed by sixteen of the commissioners. Two of them, Sir Francis Palgrave and Mr. Hogg, dissented, and signed protests, which were printed; but no great weight was attached to them. The report concluded as follows:-"Even where these institutions exist in their least imperfect form, and are most rightfully administered, they are inadequate to the wants of the present state of society. In their actual condition, where not productive of positive evil, they exist, in the great majority of instances, for no purpose of general utility. The perversion of municipal institutions to political ends has occasioned the sacrifice of local interests to party purposes, which have been frequently pursued through the corruption and demoralisation of the electoral bodies. In conclusion, we report to your majesty that there prevails amongst the inhabitants of a great majority of the incorporated towns a general—and, in our opinion, a just-dissatisfaction with their municipal institutions; a distrust of the selfelected municipal councils, whose powers are subject to no popular control, and whose acts and proceedings, being secret, are unchecked by the influence of public opinion; a distrust of the municipal magistracy, tainting with suspicion the local administration of justice, and often accompanied with contempt of the persons by whom the law is administered; a discontent under the burdens of local taxation, while revenues which ought to be applied for the public advantage are diverted from their legitimate use, and are sometimes wastefully bestowed for the benefit of individuals, or squandered for purposes injurious to the character and morals of the people. We, therefore, feel it to be our duty to represent to your majesty that the existing municipal corporations of England and Wales neither possess nor deserve the confidence or respect of your majesty's subjects, and that a thorough reform must be effected before they can become what we humbly submit to your majesty they ought to be-useful and efficient instruments of local government." The number of places in which the inquiries under the commission were carried on was 237, having a population of 2,028,513. In twenty-five places the number of corporators was not ascertained; in the others (212), they amounted to 88,509. The governing body was selfelected in 186 boroughs. This body elected the mayor in 131 boroughs, appointed the recorder in 136, and the town-clerk in 135. The number of corporators exercising magisterial functions was 1,086, in 188 boroughs. In 112 boroughs the corporations had exclusive criminal jurisdiction, extending to the trial of various descriptions of offences, and in forty-two their jurisdiction was not exclusive. Seventeen boroughs did not enjoy any income whatever; in eight the precise amount could not be obtained. The total income of 212 boroughs amounted to £366,948; their expenditure to £377,027. 103 were involved in debts amounting to £1,855,371, and were besides burdened with annuities amounting to £4,463. In twentyeight boroughs only were the accounts published; » fifteen, the annual income was under £20; in eleven, it was between £2,000 and £3,000; in five, £3,000, and under £4,000; in one, £4,000, and under £5,000; in four, £5,000, and under £7,500; in five, £10,000, and under £12,500; in one, £12,500, and under £15,000; one, £15,000, and under £20,000; and in one, £91,000. The measure which was founded on the recommenda tions of the report was advocated principally by lord John Russell, lord Melbourne, and Mr. C. Hobhouse. The plan was intended to provide for 183 corporations, extending to a population of at least 2,000,000. Many of these corporations governed large and important towns, of which they did not sufficiently represent the property, intelligence, and population. In Bedford the corporation composed only one in seventy of the people, and one-fortieth of the property. In Oxford there were only 1,400 electors, and seldom more than 500 voted at an election. In Norwich, 315 of the electors were paupers. In Cambridge there were only 118 freemen, out of a population of 20,000; and while the annual rental was more than £25,000, the property of freemen amounted to little more than £2,000. These were only samples of the strange anomalies that everywhere prevailed. It was obvious to every one that corporations so constituted were altogether unfitted for the objects which they were originally designed to answer. On the contrary, they tended directly to frustrate those objects, and to render the proper government of towns impracticable. They engendered jealousy and distrust between the small governing power and the body of the people. A few persons carrying on the government for their own benefit were connected with a portion of the lower classes, whose votes they purchased, and whose habits A.D. 1835.] they demoralised. PASSING OF THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS ACT, With such a monopoly the grossest abuses were inevitable. Charitable funds, often large in amount, which had been left for the benefit of the whole people, were either lavishly distributed among the venal dependants of the governing body, squandered on civic feasts, or spent in bribing the freemen, in order to secure their votes. In short, the general if not the universal practice had been to use the powers of municipal corporations, not for the good government or benefit of the towns over which they presided-not in order that they might be well and quietly governed in the terms of the charters, but for the sole purpose of establishing an interest which might be useful in the election of members of parliament. It was absurd to contend that the exclusion and eventual suppression of freemen as such from the elections of members of municipal councils was a confiscation of existing rights. To leave them in possession of power was to entail upon the boroughs"the curse of these poor, degraded, wretched, demoralised voters, whose rights were nothing but an usurpation, that was tolerated because it was found to be convenient to all parties for political purposes. These freemen were not necessarily resident in the borough; they need not possess any qualification as to property; they need not pay rates; and, in fact, they might pass the greater part of the year in the poor-house, or in gaol." The natural consequence was, that, degraded and corrupt themselves, they polluted the electoral body with which they were connected. The excision of such an utterly rotten portion of the electoral system was manifestly necessary to the well-being of the state. 263 advantage to extinguish the £10 electors? And where was this to stop? Could it stop while a fragment remained of the Reform Act-the boasted second charter of the people of England? If there were guilty parties, let them be punished. Let convicted boroughs be disfranchised; but let not whole bodies of electors be annihilated because some of their members may have been corrupt. Were the £10 voters perfectly immaculate? and, if not, on what principle were they spared, while the freemen were condemned? The whigs had created the reform act; but now- infatuated men!-they were about to lay murderous hands upon their own offspring. Thus argued the conservatives, and not without effect, for the clause against disfranchising the freemen was carried only by a majority of twenty-eight; and in the passage through the lords several important amendments were carried against the government, owing chiefly to the vigorous opposition of lord Lyndhurst. On an amendment which he proposed to omit the clause disfranchising the freemen—he defeated the government by a majority of 93; the numbers being 130 to 37. He followed up this victory by a motion to secure to the freemen their parliamentary franchise, which was carried without a division. The commons thought it better to adopt most of these alterations, however repugnant to their feelings, rather than lose the measure. The bill, as amended, was accordingly passed on the 7th of September. London, with its numerous and wealthy incorporated guilds, was reserved for future legislation. The great feature of this reform is that it secures local It was impossible to defend a system like this, and self-government. The basis of this government is the rated 2 therefore the conservatives offered no opposition to the and resident population. Every male person of full age, principle of the bill; their aim being to save as much as who on the last day of August in any year shall have possible of the old system, which had rendered much more occupied premises within the borough continuously within service to them than to the whigs, and presented a number the three previous years, and shall for that time have been of barriers to the advance of democratic power. Sir Robert an inhabitant householder within seven miles of the Peel, with lord Stanley and Sir James Graham, who were borough, provided that he shall have been rated to the now the ablest antagonists their former whig colleagues poor-rates, and shall have paid them and all borough rates had to encounter, pleaded powerfully for the delinquent during the time of his occupation, is qualified to vote for boroughs; not for absolute acquittal, but for mitigation of the town council. In the council is vested the entire punishment. They would not go the length of asserting that deliberative and administrative functions of the corporafreemen were altogether immaculate; for of what body of tion. They appoint the town-clerk and treasurer, and electors could that be predicted? "To err is human ;" our from them the mayor and aldermen are chosen. They nature is corrupt. It is a matter of course, therefore, that have the control of the police, watching, and lighting; some measure of sin should be expected from every class of they may make bye-laws, and impose fines for their nonmen; but were those who only partook of the general observance, for the prevention of nuisances, and the due depravity to be disfranchised-altogether deprived of their government of the borough. They have the control of the political rights? The question was not whether it was burgess fund; if there be a surplus after defraying all right to admit these men for the first time, but whether necessary expenses, they may apply it to local improvethey should be deprived of the rights that they and their ments, or any object beneficial to the inhabitants; or, if ancestors had enjoyed for centuries. The reformers were the fund be insufficient, they may order a rate, of the the first to propose, covertly and insidiously, a great and nature of a county rate, to be levied. They have also important change in the reform bill. What did they a power, if they think it requisite that one or more mean by first bringing in a bill which was based on per- salaried police magistrates should be appointed, to fix petuating the rights of freemen and recognising them as the amount of such magistrates' salaries, and upon their an integral part of the constitution, and now, within three application, the crown is empowered to appoint the number years, bringing in another intending to deprive them of required. To prevent fraud, jobbing, and waste in the their rights? Was not this a precedent for breaking up management of the burgess revenue, provision is made the final settlement, which might be followed on future for the periodical auditing of accounts, and their subseoccasions? Might not another ministry deem it for theirquent publication. The burgesses yearly appoint two auditors, who must be persons qualified to be councillors, is to submit his accounts, with vouchers, half-yearly. This is the list of officers necessarily existing under the Municipal Act, 4 and 5 Wm. IV., c. 76. All advowsons, rights of presentation, or nomination to any benefice or ecclesiastical preferment in the gift of the corporate body, were required to be sold under the direction of the ecclesiastical commissioners, the proceeds to be vested in government securities, and the annual interest carried to the account of the borough fund. The management of charitable trust funds was also taken from the corporations, and placed in the hands of trustees appointed by the lord chancellor. but not actually of that body, lest identity of interest should lead to partiality in the exercise of their function. There are also two assessors elected in like manner. Their duties are to assist the mayor in revising the burgess lists. The qualification of a councillor is a property qualification, varying with the amount of population in boroughs divided into four or more wards, a real or personal estate of £1,000, or being rated to the poor upon the annual value of at least £30; in other boroughs a moiety of this qualification suffices. The qualification clause was one of the questionable amendments introduced by the lords, as well as that appointing aldermen-an order having precedency merely, and no duties distinct from those of councillors; and who appear to have been created either out of veneration for ancient names and degrees, or from a desire to preserve in the new municipalities a miniature representation of the imperial government of three estates -king, lords, and commons. All the existing rights of freedom or citizenship, or burgess-ship, in the old corporations are preserved to the present possessors. This was just; as many of these immunities consisted of an interest in charities, lands, or exemption from tolls, which had been purchased by money or services, or acquired by law. ful inheritance. But all exclusive privileges of trading, or of exercising any calling or handicraft, in corporate towns were abolished. As the act was framed for the reform of existing municipal corporations, it does not apply to the anincorporated towns; but, on the petition of the inhabitant householders of any town not corporate, the crown is empowered to extend the provisions of this important statute by the grant of charters of incorpora tion. The mayor is elected from the councillors, and if any one so elected does not choose to serve, he must pay a fine of £100. His qualification is the same as that of a councillor, and if he acts without being duly qualified he is liable to a fine of £50. He presides at the meetings in council, and has precedence in all places within the borough. He revises with his assessors the lists of the constituency, which he must sign in open court. He also presides at the election of councillors. During his year of office he is magistrate for the borough, and also during the succeeding year, and is the returning officer at the election of members of parliament. The aldermen constitute onethird of the number of councillors. They are ineligible for the offices of coroner or recorder, and are exempted from serving on juries. They hold office six years, one-half going out every three years. The town-clerk acts in obedience to the directions of the council. His duties are, besides preserving minutes of the transactions, to make out the freemen's roll, the burgess list, and the ward lists. He is responsible for the safe keeping of all charter deeds and records, and is subject to various fines in case of neglect of duty. The treasurer is appointed by the council, of which he must not be a member, and he must give security for the proper discharge of his duties. He is bound to keep accounts of all receipts and disbursements, which are to be open to the inspection of the members of the council. He is to pay no money except by order in writing, and The need of corporate reform in Ireland was even greater than in England. Corporations were early planted in that country by the English government, as subsidiary institutions connected with the English constitution, which was established at first within the pale, and gradually extended to the whole country, as it became subject to the English power. But whatever independence the Irish corporations may have had originally, it was destroyed by James I., in consequence of the refractory spirit manifested by the municipal bodies in connection with the Reformation, or rather, the supremacy of the crown in matters of religion. He sent his agents through the provinces for the purpose of enforcing the statutes upon this subject, and requiring the regular use of the Book of Common Prayer. Wherever the mayors and other municipal officers did not submit to the king's authority, they were summoned before the royal commissioners, and not only deposed from their offices, but subjected to imprisonment and to heavy fines, for the payment of which their goods were sold by auction in the streets. Pliant tools of the king were substituted in their places. These persons signed away the old constitutional liberties of the towns, delivered up the old charters, and took out new ones. These new charters nominated the mayor, sheriff, recorder, and in many instances, the members of the council, which in no case fairly represented the inhabitants. In this way, by a stroke of arbitrary power, the Irish towns were deprived of their constitutional rights and liberties which they had enjoyed for four hundred years, and this spoliation was inflicted upon them in the name of the protestant religion. This was one of the causes of the little progress that religion made in the country for ages. It appeared to the people in unnatural association with lawless tyranny, high-handed oppression, insolent exclusiveness, and iniquitous monopoly. It was next to impossible that the Reformation coul gain any ground, or that the established religion could exert any salutary moral influence, while associated with a system which involved such a flagrant violation of civil rights. what The system, however, was somewhat mitigated by were called the "new rules" issued by the lord lieutenant in council in the year 1672, with the design of encouraging the trade of the towns, which provided that all resident foreigners, strangers, and aliens, being merchants, or skilled in any mystery, craft, or trade, were entitled to their freedom; but they could not, except by special dispensation, fill the higher municipal offices. After the revolution of 1688, these relaxations were wholly disregarded, and 2 A.D. 1835.] ABUSES IN THE IRISH CORPORATIONS. system of rigid exclusiveness towards Roman catholics everywhere prevailed. In some of the corporate towns no Roman catholics would be suffered to reside within the walls, nor would they be permitted to exercise any handicraft or trade for which a regular apprenticeship was served. The making of an inferior class of shoes, or "brogues," was the highest attainment in industrial art permitted to this Thelot race during those times of unmitigated protestant ascendancy. E 265. the parliamentary representative was vested in a small selfelected body of freemen; almost invariably the power of nomination was actually possessed by the gentleman known as the "patron " or "proprietor," who could dispose of the seat as he thought proper, and if not reserved for himself or some member of his family, it was sold for the highest price it would bring in the market-treated in every respect as absolute property, which was transmitted, like the family estate, from father to son. This property was fully The Irish corporations were included in the inquiry, recognised at the Union, and it was by buying it up at an which commenced in 1833. The Irish commissioners took exceedingly liberal price that lord Castlereagh was enabled for their local investigations the one hundred and seven- to carry that measure. By the act of union, a large teen places which had sent representatives to the Irish number of those rotten corporations, some of which had parliament. They found everywhere the grossest abuses. By an act of George II., residence had been dispensed with as a qualification for corporate offices. The effect of this was to deprive a large number of them of a resident governing body. In some cases a few, very rarely a majority, of the municipal council were inhabitants of the town. In others, the whole chartered body of burgesses were non-resident, and they attended as a mere matter of form, to go through the farce of electing members of parliament, or for the purpose of disposing of the corporate property. In some boroughs the charter gave the nomination of a member of parliament to the lord of the manor or some local proprietor. In others the power of returning 127.-NEW SERIES. But a not even a hamlet to represent, were swept away. considerable number remained, and of these the commissioners of inquiry remarked:-"This system deserves peculiar notice in reference to your majesty's Roman catholic subjects. In the close boroughs they are almost universally excluded from all corporate privileges. In the more considerable towns, they have rarely been admitted even as freemen, and, with few exceptions, they are altogether excluded from the governing bodies. In someand among these is the most important corporation in Ireland, that of Dublin-their admission is still resisted on avowed principles of sectarian distinction. The exclusive spirit operates far more widely and more mischievously |