should it become law, I cannot see that any man in the country, as far as the boroughs of England and Wales are concerned, would have reasonable ground of complaint on the score of exclusion. I will now notice, very shortly, the objections which have been made, in conversation, to my scheme, and which-some of them at least-may be made during its discussion here. I have been reminded that, more than thirty years back, an educational test was a favourite idea with Lord Brougham and other political thinkers of the day, and that it was abandoned as impracticable. And this is true, but these great authorities proposed their test as the basis and sole title to the elective franchise. It was objected to this idea, and the objections prevailed-first, that to obtain a sufficient number of voters the test must be so lowmere writing the name perhaps that practically it would amount to universal suffrage; secondly, that the conduct of such a vast number of examinations would be so troublesome and so expensive as to be almost impossible. But these objections, cogent or otherwise-as to which there may be much difference of opinion-do not apply to my proposal. The examinations under my Bill, though doubtless very numerous in the first year or two, would not be, as I have endeavoured to show, in such numbers as to present any very serious difficulty, and as I only propose a new franchise in addition to those which exist, it is not necessary to put the test very low. Again, I have been asked why my Bill does not extend to the counties. Well; it seems to me that, in that which I have proposed, I have gone to the extreme limit to which a private Member of this House should venture, and that it is more fitting that the county franchise should be dealt with by county Members. But beyond this, my plan is not as applicable to the county as to the borough franchise. The inhabitants of all towns have easy and very cheap access to the schoolmaster. Not so with a rural population, who would probably have to go so far-to encounter so much trouble and expense-in order to find the instruction they need, that, as regards them, my plan would be almost inoperative. Not a few have suggested to me that, if one man is to be examined, all should be So. That all should be passed through the same sieve. This idea I wholly dissent from, and conceive that it would be the same mistake, which, to my thinking, we make at present-namely, to recognize but one title to the franchise. We now, with

the exception of our freemen, admit no title except property. I wish to establish a second title-intelligence. Let a man pay in some shape for this privilege. If he cannot pay in money let him pay in mind. Under our present system we do not require property to be intelligent. I shall not ask intelligence to be rich. Some tell me that my scheme is almost universal suffrage; others, that it sounds well enough, but that practically it would admit scarce any of the working-men, who would not take the trouble which this Bill imposes on them. In this conflict of opinions I might almost leave the one to answer the other, and flatter myself with the belief that I had hit on a happy medium between the two. I will, however, admit to the first objection, that it is possible enough that in years to come-years which none of us may expect to see-the principle which I seek to introduce, even with a higher test, may lead to something like universal suffrage. But it would be by a slow and safe progress, such as has gradually made our Constitution that which it isa progress to which our institutions would gradually and safely adapt themselves, much more gradually and safely than to the same result, arrived at in a much shorter time, by a constant lowering of the property qualification, which I take to be inevitable, if you are resolved to retain property as your sole title to a vote. I may be asked, where is the condition of permanence in my scheme? I may be told that my test may be as gradually lowered as a property qualification. I deny it. I see permanence in this. My test is so low that no man would have any ground of complaint on the score of exclusion, which he would not be ashamed to urge. I see permanence in the well-known tendency of examinations rather to become more strict than more easy. More than in either of the foregoing reasons, I see permanence in the double title to a vote. Each would take care of the other. The householder would oppose any debasement of the educational test. The man who voted in virtue of his certificate would oppose any lowering of the property qualification, and would say, "Let my neighbour take the same trouble which I have taken, and obtain a vote as I have done." But now as to those who allege that practically scarce any of the working men would avail themselves of the advantage which this Bill offers to them. I do not believe that it would be so, and my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, who knows the working men well, will be as

stifle this question of Reform. This Bill may be looked upon, as the hon. Gentleman described it, from a two-fold point of view. We may look upon it either with regard to its own intrinsic merits or as an alternative to the Bill which has to be proposed by Her Majesty's Government. I do not hesitate to say that I accept it as a good Bill in itself, and I am bound to say so because, having voted last year against the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds (Mr. Baines), I might possibly be open to the suspicion that in supporting this proposal I am actuated by an endeavour to throw confusion into the Liberal ranks and to impede the Bill to be proposed by Her Majesty's Government. I may, however, state that in the conclusion of my remarks last year upon the Bill of the hon. Member for Leeds I said that although I would oppose that Bill, yet I would say "aye" without misgiving or hesitation to any Bill which would have for its object the enfranchising of those of the working classes whose enfranchisement would be for the benefit of the country. The time has come when I am able to redeem that pledge, for I think that the Bill proposed by my hon. Friend is one that will enfranchise that portion of the working classes whose enfranchisement will be for the benefit of the country. I think the Bill hits precisely that class of workmen alluded to by Earl Russell yesterday in his answer to a Scotch deputation that went to him. He said there was a certain class of intelligent and skilled artizans, each of whom were debarred from the franchise, because he was obliged to live in a house the rental of which was less than £10, inasmuch as he had not the means of taking a larger house and providing, at the same time, for the education of his children. This Bill will admit that man to the suffrage. Not only, therefore, do I advocate it upon that ground, but I advocate it upon the broad ground that it would be advisable and expedient to admit, if they are not already admitted, the élite of the working classes to the suffrage. I entirely agree with some observations made by the noble Lord who proposed the Address to Her Majesty at the opening of this Session. The noble Lord said that-" The greater the number you admit to the suffrage the greater the power you confer upon the decisions of this House." I adopt that expression of the noble Lord, but with certain qualifications, and those qualifications are these :-that those num VOL. CLXXXI. [THIRD SERIES.]

bers whom you introduce into the suffrage should either bear with them that interest in the institutions of the country which is derived from property, or that they should bear with them that interest which primá facie men of intelligence and men of education in the mass may be presumed to take in all questions affecting the State policy of the country. I think my hon. Friend's Bill hits that case precisely, for the existing franchise provides for the property qualification, and the Bill of my hon. Friend provides for the question of education and intelligence. My hon. Friend in the course of his speech has referred to certain difficulties which have been alleged against the Bill, and the most important of these seems to be that one Gentleman says the franchise would be too narrow, while another says it would be too wide. With regard to the charge of its being too narrow, I am quite prepared to go with my hon. Friend, and to say I do not believe that, at the present moment, the adoption of his Bill would admit a very large or at all a preponderating portion of the working classes. I believe my hon. Friend the Secretary for the Treasury if he were in his place would bear out this assertion. Without attempting to compare the standard of English with Irish education, I know that the Secretary for the Treasury is too often obliged to write letters expressing the deep regret with which he announces to myself, or to some other Gentleman, that some young person in whom we have taken an interest has not been successful, notwithstanding many months of preparation, in obtaining the desired appointment of an outdoor officer of Customs. If that be so on the one hand, look on the other at the number of persons-a most valuable class of competent men of business-engineers, lawyers, attorneys, and clerks-every one of whom, if they have not already obtained the franchise, would be admitted to the suffrage according to the scheme of my hon. Friend. And thus you get rid of all those multitudinous and intricate schemes of "fancy franchises" which have been raised within the last few years. On the other hand, there are those who say that in a short time this franchise would be so extensive that it would almost amount to a universal suffrage. I quite agree with my hon. Friend that a very long period indeed must elapse before that takes place but even if it should come to universal suffrage, all I can say is, "so be it." All I can say is, that if you do come to universal

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suffrage by this Bill you will have taken the danger out of it, because universal suffrage will then be divided amongst an educated and reflecting body who have been long in training in a course of political education. If we are to be smothered or to be swamped, I had much rather be drowned in a butt of malmsey than in a barrel of swipes. No doubt there are many difficulties connected with the measure which has been called "Chinese,' pedantic, coxcombical, with a variety of other uncomplimentary terms. The worst thing I have heard about it, however, is that it is a new thing. I have heard the expression, when my hon. Friend has been passing, "There goes Confucius," meaning by that that my hon. Friend was or would be a lawgiver who would administer this country on the Chinese system, that of literati and competitive examinations. I think the discussion upon this Bill ought not at the present to extend to its machinery, but should be confined to the broad principle of it as to a theory deserving consideration. I think I may quote, and call as advocates for the Bill, all those Gentlemen who have taken the most prominent part in the discussions on Reform. I think I may call my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds himself an advocate for the Bill, for in all his speeches the main point he has alleged has been the amount of instruction possessed by the upper portion of the working classes. He has referred to the extension of mechanics' institutes; to the number of cheap periodicals they take in; to the newspapers exclusively representing; and to the quantity of literature consumed by the working classes. It is their intelligence and not their wealth that has moved the heart of my hon. Friend. Though perhaps he may naturally prefer his own £6 Bill, comparing it with this Bill, still I think I may quote him as an advocate. There is a gentleman, however, who knows as much of the working classes as my hon. Friend, who might be described, as I saw a statesman defined in a passage I read in an American paper the other day, as a "stock, lock, and gun barrel Radical." I mean Mr. Holyoake. He wrote a pamphlet last year -a pamphlet in which I found much to disapprove, I am bound to say, but which I may describe as being both spirited and honest. I quoted a passage from it last year, and I will now venture to quote a portion of it again, because there are a great number of Members of this House now who did not bear me read it then, and it is a good

Mr. Gregory

thing that will bear repeating. Mr. Holyoake says, with reference to the £6 franchise

"I know towns where ardent Reformers are afraid of an unqualified suffrage. Good Radicals, the most thorough of their class, have said to me, There is a mob in our town (there is in every principle. Had they voted, our Liberal Members town), ignorant, selfish, venal, and reckless of would be unseated at the next election. They would vote against those who seek to raise them.' This is the general feeling in Liberal boroughs. Now there is no plan of a £6 suffrage which selects the worthy and excludes the base. All £6 suffrage is blind, and hence we have Radicals arguing feebly, and fearing much the result of the very measure they plead for. Surely, this is political imbecility."

We might next call upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer to support the Bill. We all have engraven on our minds the celebrated speech of the right hon. Gentleman, in which he said—

"If we debar a man from the suffrage, the onus of proof rests on us to show that he is incapacitated by some considerations of personal unfitness or political dangers."

Now, I think this Bill meets that expression of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to a hair. Here you have expressly excluded, by the Bill of my hon. Friend, those two qualities which would most conduce, in my opinion, to "personal unfitness and political dangers," namely, ignorance and guilt. Now, I would go farther than my hon. Friend, and touch upon another point, to which he did not allude, but which I think is a recommendation to the Bill. I think a franchise of this description would have the greatest tendency to check venality and corruption. I am not prepared to say that because a man is able to do a sum in multiplication he would not take a bribe; but I do say that when you have men in the suffrage who can read and write and reflect, and who can canvass among themselves the merits of a candidate-I do say that these men are less likely to be actuated by degrading and venal considerations, and that they would be more likely to return representatives of a higher class to this House, than a constituency formed by a mere lowering of the suffrage. I was travelling only recently with a gentleman from Australia-the Mayor of Melbourneand he said to me, before I knew of the principle of my hon. Friend's Bill, "We are endeavouring in our Australian colonies, and a great number of enlightened and thoroughly liberal men are working, to establish, if possible, an education franchise in lieu of that almost universal suffrage