The Rise of the Democracy Part 13

The Bill as first introduced in 1866 was a moderate measure, making a 7 rental the qualification for a vote in the boroughs. It was too moderate to provoke any enthusiasm, and it was hateful to the old Palmerstonian Whigs and most of the Conservatives, who objected to any enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the working cla.s.s. By a combination of these opponents the Bill was defeated, the Liberals retired from office, and a Conservative ministry under Lord Derby, with Disraeli leading the House of Commons, was formed.

THE HYDE PARK RAILINGS (1866)

It was seen quickly that there was a very real demand for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the town workman--the agricultural districts remained unawakened--and Reform Leagues and Reform Unions sprang up as they had done in 1831. Then in London came the incident of the Hyde Park railings, which gave a distinct impetus to the Reform movement. What happened at Hyde Park was this: the London Reform Union decided to hold a monster demonstration in Hyde Park on July 23rd, but the Chief Commissioner of Police had declared the meeting must not take place, and ordered the gates to be closed at five o'clock. Mr. Edmund Beales, and other leaders of the London Reform Union, on being refused admittance, drove away calmly to hold a meeting in Trafalgar Square, but the great ma.s.s of people remained outside the park, "pressed and pressing round the railings." Some were clinging to the railings; others deliberately weakened the supports of the railings.

Park Lane was thronged, and all along the Bayswater Road there was a dense crowd. The line was too long for the police to defend, and presently, when the railings yielded to the pressure, the people poured in to the park.

"There was a simultaneous, impulsive rush, and some yards of railing were down, and men in scores were tumbling and floundering and rushing over them. The example was followed along Park Lane, and in a moment half a mile of iron railings was lying on the gra.s.s, and a tumultuous and delighted mob was swarming over the park. The news ran wildly through the town. Some thought it a revolt; others were of opinion it was a revolution. The first day of liberty was proclaimed here--the breaking loose of anarchy was shrieked at there. The mob capered and jumped over the sward for half the night through. Flower beds and shrubs suffered a good deal, not so much from wanton destruction, as from the pure boisterousness which came of an unexpected opportunity for horseplay. There were a good many little encounters with the police; stones were thrown on the one side, and truncheons used on the other pretty freely. A few heads were broken on both sides, and a few prisoners were made by the police; but there was no revolution, no revolt, no serious riot even."[81]

The Guards were called out, and a detachment arrived at the park, but the people only cheered the soldiers good-humouredly. Not even a blank cartridge was fired that day.

The Government, however, took the Hyde Park disturbance with extreme seriousness. "Nothing can well be more certain than the fact that the Hyde Park riot, as it was called, convinced Her Majesty's ministers of the necessity of an immediate adoption of the reform principle."[82] Disraeli, who in 1859 had proposed reform without getting any support, now saw that a great opportunity had come for a constructive Conservative policy, and boldly insisted to his party that Parliamentary Reform was a necessity.

"You cannot establish a party of mere resistance to change, for change is inevitable in a progressive country," he told his followers.

All through the autumn and winter great demonstrations took place in the large towns and cities of the country in support of the demand for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the workman, and when Parliament met in February, 1867, a Reform Bill was promised in the Queen's Speech. To Lord Derby the measure was frankly a "leap in the dark," and one or two Conservative ministers (including Cranborne, afterwards Lord Salisbury) left the Government in disgust. But the Conservatives generally chuckled at "dishing the Whigs,"

and the Bill, with considerable revision, was pa.s.sed through both Houses of Parliament by August.

HOUSEHOLD SUFFRAGE

By the Reform Bill of 1867 all male householders in boroughs were enfranchised, and all male lodgers who paid 10 a year for unfurnished rooms. The town workman was enfranchised by this Act as the middle-cla.s.s man had been enfranchised by the Act of 1832, and the electorate was increased from about 100,000 to 2,000,000. An amendment that women should not be excluded from the franchise was moved by John Stuart Mill, and defeated. Some redistribution of seats took place under the Act of 1867, eleven boroughs were disfranchised, thirty-five with less than 10,000 inhabitants were made single-member const.i.tuencies, and additional representation was given to Chelsea, Hackney, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Salford, Glasgow, Birmingham, Dundee, and Merthyr. "Thus was _Household Suffrage_ brought in in the boroughs, and a great step was made towards democracy, for it was plain that the middle-cla.s.s county const.i.tuencies could not last very much longer now that all workmen who happened to live in boroughs had their votes."[83]

The third Reform Act, giving household suffrage to the country districts, was pa.s.sed by Gladstone in 1884, and it was followed by a Redistribution of Seats Act in 1885. By these two Acts the agricultural labourer was enfranchised, a service franchise was created for those who were qualified neither as householders nor lodgers, and the principle of single-member equal electoral districts--on a basis of 54,000 inhabitants--was adopted.

Only twenty-three boroughs, the City of London and the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin, retained double-member representation. The membership of the House of Commons was increased from six hundred and fifty-eight to six hundred and seventy, the present total; and the franchise remains as it was fixed in 1885--occupation and ownership giving the right to vote.

From time to time, for more than a hundred years, a plea has been put forward for universal or adult suffrage for men on the ground of an abstract right to vote, but it has met with little encouragement.[84] There is, however, a wide feeling in favour of simplifying the registration laws, so that a three-months' residence, instead of, as at present, a year's residence from one July to the next, should be sufficient to qualify for the franchise. There is also a strong demand for "one man, one vote." At present, while no elector may give more than one vote in any const.i.tuency, he may, if he has property in various places, give a vote in each of these districts, and some men thus give as many as a dozen votes at a general election. This plural voting by property and residential qualifications in different const.i.tuencies is not customary in other const.i.tutional countries, and a Bill for its abolition pa.s.sed the House of Commons in 1906, but was rejected by the Lords.

While Liberals urge "one man, one vote" as the more democratic arrangement, Conservatives reply by asking for "one vote, one value"--that is, a new redistribution of seats, for in the last twenty-five years there have been deep and extensive changes in the distribution of populations, and Ireland in particular is over-represented, it is maintained. But then the representation of Ireland in the House of Commons was really guaranteed by the Act of Union, 1800.[85]

WORKING-CLa.s.s REPRESENTATION IN PARLIAMENT

With the extension of the franchise the change in the _personnel_ of the House of Commons has become marked. The more wealthy of the middle cla.s.s entered in considerable numbers after 1832; the Acts of 1867 and 1884 made the entry of the workman inevitable. The miners were the first to send Labour representatives to Parliament, and to-day their members outnumber those of any other trade. Since 1892 industrial const.i.tuencies, chiefly in Yorkshire, Lancashire, South Wales, and the mining districts, have gone on steadily electing and re-electing working-cla.s.s representatives--trade union secretaries and officers for the most part--and with the formation of a National Labour Representation Committee in 1900, these representatives became a separate and distinct party--the Labour Party after 1906--in the House of Commons.

Enfranchis.e.m.e.nt to secure representation for the redress of grievances has been the principle that has guided the English people towards democracy.

Both the middle cla.s.s and the working cla.s.s were convinced that enfranchis.e.m.e.nt was necessary if the House of Commons was to be in any real sense a representative a.s.sembly, and both have used enfranchis.e.m.e.nt for obtaining representation in Parliament. The return of forty Labour Members at recent general elections is evidence that a large electorate supports the Labour Party in its desire to carry in Parliament legislation that will make life a better thing for the labourer and his family; and in the House of Commons the Labour Members have won a general respect. As a matter of fact, the House of Commons to-day is in every way a more orderly, a more intelligent, more business-like, and better-mannered a.s.sembly than it was in the days before 1832.

No stronger evidence of the value of Parliamentary representation to the working-cla.s.s can be offered than the large output of what may be called labour legislation in recent years. It is true that Lord Shaftesbury's benevolent and entirely disinterested activities promoted Factory Acts in the first half of the nineteenth century, but in the last twenty years measures for the amelioration of the lot of the workman have been constantly before Parliament.

REMOVAL OF RELIGIOUS DISABILITIES--CATHOLICS, JEWS, AND FREETHINKERS

The nineteenth century was not only the century of popular enfranchis.e.m.e.nt; it was the century that saw the removal of religious disabilities, and the free admission to Parliament and to the Government of Roman Catholics, Nonconformists, Jews, and Freethinkers.

In the year 1800 Roman Catholics in England were excluded from Parliament, from the franchise, from the magistracy, the Bar, the Civil Service, from munic.i.p.al corporations, and from commissions in the Army and Navy. Pitt was willing to abolish these disabilities on the pa.s.sing of the Act of Union, and the Irish people were bitterly disappointed that the disabilities remained. But George III. refused all a.s.sent to the proposals, and Pitt resigned. Several times the House of Commons pa.s.sed Catholic Relief Bills, which were thrown out by the Lords, and it was not till 1829, when "the English ministry had to choose between concession and civil war," that Peel and the Duke of Wellington yielded and persuaded their party to admit Catholics to Parliament and to the Civil and Military Services.

The repeal of the Penal Laws against Roman Catholics--Acts of Elizabeth that inflicted penalties on priests who said ma.s.s in England, and on Roman Catholics who attended ma.s.s--took place in 1844, and in 1866 the Parliamentary Oath was amended and made un.o.bjectionable to Roman Catholics.

A Roman Catholic is still excluded by law from the Crown, the Lord Chancellorship, and the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, but many Roman Catholics are members of Parliament--members of all parties--and the late Lord Ripon, a Catholic, sat in a Liberal Cabinet.

In 1846 Rothschild was elected as a Liberal M.P. for the City of London, but the law did not permit him to take his seat. Then for some years Jewish M.P.'s were allowed to take part in debates and sit on committees, but were not allowed to vote. Finally, in 1858, the Lords, after rejecting the measure for ten years, pa.s.sed the Jews' Disabilities Bill, which removed all restriction. The Right Hon. Herbert Samuel, M.P., is the first Jew to sit in the Cabinet, for though Disraeli was of the Jewish race, he was a Christian in belief.

Although in 1800 various Acts on the Statute Book required Nonconformists to subscribe to the religion of the Church of England before taking part in munic.i.p.al affairs, these Acts had long been a dead letter. All that was done in the nineteenth century was to repeal these Acts, and to throw open the universities and public offices to Nonconformists. It is only, however, in recent years that Nonconformists have filled posts of high importance in the Cabinet.

The last attempt at restriction on the religious beliefs of members of Parliament was made in the House of Commons itself, when Charles Bradlaugh, after being duly elected M.P. for Northampton, was by the action of the House excluded from his seat. Bradlaugh was a frank disbeliever in Christianity, and the House of Commons refused to allow him either to take the oath or make an affirmation. For five years (1880-5) the struggle lasted--a Liberal Government being in power all the time--and three times during that period the electors of Northampton triumphantly returned Charles Bradlaugh as their member, only to be answered by resolutions of refusal and expulsion pa.s.sed by the House of Commons against their representative. It was a repet.i.tion of the battle Wilkes had fought one hundred and twenty years earlier, and it ended in the same way. A new Parliament a.s.sembled in January, 1886 (after a general election in November), the new Speaker (Mr. Peel) permitted Bradlaugh to take the oath in the usual way, declined to allow any interference, and the battle was over. Two years later a general Affirmation Bill was carried on the motion of Bradlaugh, and became law. When Charles Bradlaugh lay dying in January, 1891, the House of Commons pa.s.sed, without dissent, a resolution expunging from the journals of the House the old resolutions of exclusion.

THE ENFRANCHIs.e.m.e.nT OF WOMEN

The nineteenth century then will always be noted as the era of steady advance towards democracy, especially in England. Enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the workman, and his representation in Parliament, have transferred the government of the country from an aristocracy to the middle cla.s.s and the working cla.s.s, for to-day, alike in Parliament and in the permanent Civil Service, men of the middle cla.s.s predominate, a.s.sisted by those who served apprenticeship in mine or workshop. The removal of religious disabilities has ended the old rule that confined the business of the legislature and the administration of justice to members of the Established Church of England, and Roman Catholics, Jews, Nonconformists, and Freethinkers now take their share in all public work.

One disability only remains--the s.e.x disability that denies the parliamentary franchise to women. In the middle ages women were excused from parliamentary attendance, but there was no notion that their powers and privileges as landowners were shortened because, on account of their s.e.x, they were granted exemption from Parliament and from juries. In 1868 a test case--Chorlton _v._ Lings--was brought, and the judges decided that women householders were not to be registered as electors, and it was left to Parliament to pa.s.s a Women's Enfranchis.e.m.e.nt Bill. From the time of John Stuart Mill's advocacy in 1867 there have always been supporters of Women's Suffrage in the House of Commons, and in the last five years these supporters have been growing in numbers. Only the refusal of the Government to give time for the discussion of the Bill in Committee has prevented a Woman's Enfranchis.e.m.e.nt measure, which on several occasions has received a second reading, from pa.s.sing the House of Commons; and the announcement by the present (1911) Government that full facilities for such discussion are to be granted next year (1912) would indicate that the removal of political s.e.x disabilities is close at hand. Women are not asking for adult suffrage, but are willing to receive enfranchis.e.m.e.nt on the terms that qualify men as electors, and the Conciliation Bill, as it is called--because members of every political party have agreed to make it their Bill--would place on the roll of electors rather more than a million of women voters.

Meantime, while waiting for the removal of the anti-democratic barrier that excludes them from full political citizenship, women are admitted in the United Kingdom to an equal share with men in all local government. Since 1869 women who are householders have enjoyed the munic.i.p.al franchise, and as Poor Law guardians and members of school boards, they have been freely elected to sit side by side with men. In 1907 women were declared eligible by Parliament for membership on county and borough councils, and for the chairmanship of county councils and the mayoralty of boroughs. Since this Act was pa.s.sed we have seen women elected to the councils of great cities--Manchester and Liverpool, for instance--and chosen as mayors in several towns. No political movement in recent years has been of greater public interest or importance than the agitation for "Votes for Women." The demand for enfranchis.e.m.e.nt is based on the old const.i.tutional ground of the Parliamentarians of the seventeenth century--that those who are directly taxed by Government must have some political control of the public expenditure--and it is supported by the present leader of the Conservative Party[86] on the ground that government can only be carried on in England by consent of the governed.

The demand for the parliamentary franchise is with us the expression of that deep dissatisfaction at the unequal relations of the s.e.xes that is felt by many men, and by far more women, all over the civilised world. As the middle-cla.s.s man and the workmen of Great Britain were sure that they could not get from Parliament an understanding of popular grievances, still less fair treatment, until they possessed the right to choose their own parliamentary representatives, so women are convinced that there can be no adequate adjustment of these unequal relations until they too enjoy the same privilege of citizenship; for enfranchis.e.m.e.nt and representation are the two chosen instruments of democratic government in our day.

CHAPTER VIII

DEMOCRACY AT WORK

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

To-day in Great Britain, in America, in the self-governing colonies, and in many European countries, we can sec the principles of democracy in working order.

The whole system of local government in Great Britain and Ireland is essentially democratic. The munic.i.p.al councils of all the large cities are elected on household suffrage, and have enormous powers. There is now no s.e.x disability to prevent the election of women to these bodies, and, except in the case of the clergy of the Established Church, who are disqualified from sitting on town councils (but not on county or district councils), all ratepayers are eligible for nomination. The result is that on nearly every city council, and on a great number of county councils, London borough councils, urban and rural district councils, boards of guardians, and parish councils, there are working-cla.s.s representatives, while women members have been elected to the great councils of Liverpool and Manchester, and sit on many boards of guardians and parish councils.

All these councils are of recent creation. The Munic.i.p.al Corporations Act of 1835 placed the election of town councils for the first time in the hands of the ratepayers, but the real reform of local government dates from 1888. In that year the Conservative Government established county and district councils and Lord Rosebery became the first chairman of the London County Council. Six years later the Liberals set up parish councils in the rural districts, with parish meetings where the population did not exceed three hundred. In 1899 the Conservatives displaced the old London vestries by borough councils, and in 1902-3 abolished in England the school boards created in 1870, and made the county council the local authority for public elementary education. Scotland was allowed to retain its school boards, and strong but unsuccessful opposition was made in London and the chief cities to the suppression of the specially elected education authority.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE RIGHT HON. JOHN BURNS, M.P.

_Photo: Moyse, Putney._]

As far as rural England is concerned, county councils, district councils, and parish councils are, generally speaking, very reluctant to put into operation the wide powers they possess. The average county council, though popularly elected, is composed in agricultural England of landowners and the bigger farmers, who, as a common rule, do not favour a land programme for labourers, and are anxious to keep down the rates. The rural district council and board of guardians are equally averse from any display of public enterprise, and the parish council, which often consists mainly of labourers, rarely accomplishes anything except at the prompting, or with the sanction, of the parochial landowner. The result is that allotments, rural housing, village baths and washhouses, an adequate water supply, public halls and libraries, are not regarded as the concern of rural elected authorities, but are left to the private enterprise of landowners.

Civic pride, which glories in the public proprietorship of lands and libraries, tramways and lodging-houses, waterworks and workmen's dwellings, art galleries and swimming baths, and is a living influence in the munic.i.p.alities of, let us say, London, Glasgow, Liverpool, Leeds, Bradford, Manchester, Birmingham, West Ham, and many a smaller borough, does not exist in rural councils. To the farmer and the peasant public ownership is a new and alien thing. The common lands and all the old village communal life have gone out of the memory of rural England; but the feudal tradition that the landowner is the real centre of authority has survived, and it is the benevolent landowner who is expected to build cottages, grant allotments, and see to the water supply, as fifty years ago he built and managed the village school. Political organisation could break through this tradition, but farmers and agricultural labourers are without this organisation; and so the authority of the landowner remains, in spite of the democratic const.i.tution of local government. The people can allow their power to remain in the hands of others, just as a king can be content to reign without ruling, and the local government of rural England is an oligarchy elected by a popular franchise.

In the factory towns and the mining districts it is a very different matter. Here the people are organised, and take their share in local government. In the county of Durham, for instance, the working cla.s.s predominates on local councils, and the influence of trade unions prevails in these a.s.semblies wherever a strong Labour party exists. Mr. Joseph Chamberlain began his public career on the Birmingham Town Council, and his munic.i.p.al services earned for him the enthusiastic support of Birmingham for all his later political ventures. It would be difficult to mention the name of a great statesman who laid the foundations of his fame in rural local government.

As in local government, so in the Imperial Parliament. Rural England sends no Labour member to the House of Commons. Only in very exceptional cases has a tenant farmer been elected. It is the social labour of the mine and the mill that has produced the Labour member of Parliament.

Mr. Joseph Arch made a valiant attempt to organise the agricultural labourers of England, and from 1880 to 1890 a rural labourers' union, with some thousands of members, was in existence. For a time this secured a rise in wages, and when Mr. Arch was in Parliament, as a Liberal M.P.

(1885-1895), the rural labourer hoped for lasting improvement in the conditions of life. But the Union fell to pieces, and Mr. Arch was not strong enough single-handed to force the claims of his const.i.tuents on the House of Commons.

THE WORKMAN IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

To-day there are more than forty workmen in the House of Commons, and the great majority of these have served an apprenticeship in munic.i.p.al and trade union offices. Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Stafford, South Wales, Glasgow, Dundee, Leicester, Norwich and London, all have their elected Labour members in Parliament, and a marked preference is shown for the man who has proved his honesty and capacity in the munic.i.p.ality, or as the leader of his trade union. All the miners'

representatives are tried and experienced men. Mr. G.N. Barnes, M.P., was for ten years the general secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. Mr. Clynes, M.P., was elected to the office of district secretary of the Gas Workers' and General Labourers' Union twenty years ago; Mr. Will Thorne, M.P., has been general secretary of the same union since 1889, and has sat on the West Ham Corporation for more than sixteen years. Mr. George Lansbury, M.P., and Mr. Will Crooks, M.P., are well known for their work on the London County Council and on their local borough council and board of guardians. Similarly with other Labour members of Parliament. Their lives are marked by a sense of public responsibility, with the result that in the House of Commons they are grave, business-like, and undemonstrative. The Labour members do not make "scenes"; they respect the rules of the House and the dignity of the National a.s.sembly, partly because they are all in sober middle age, but more because they have learnt that public business can only be carried on by due observance of order; and they are in Parliament to get business done for their const.i.tuents, to promote legislation that will make life easier for the working cla.s.s. When Mr. Victor Grayson, in the exuberance of youth, and with a pa.s.sion that blazed out against the misery of the poor, made a "scene" in the House of Commons, and was expelled, the Labour members were quite sincere in their disapproval. They understood, with a wider knowledge than Mr. Grayson possessed, that "scenes" alienated sympathy in the House, were not helpful in debate, and were not popular with the electors.

The member who would succeed in the House of Commons must respect the usages of the House, and show himself loyal to its laws of debate. As long as this respect and loyalty are shown the Labour member is accepted by his fellow-members as one who has been elected to the greatest club in the world, and is justly ent.i.tled to all the privileges of membership. For the British House of Commons is a democratic a.s.sembly, and in its collective pride it cares nothing for the opinions or social rank of its members. All it asks is that the newly-elected member should be alive to the honour of membership, should be modest in his bearing, and should as soon as possible "catch the tone of the House." He may be a labourer, or the son of a belted earl; the House is indifferent so long as his parliamentary manners are good.

The House of Commons is a far more orderly a.s.sembly than it was a hundred years ago; it is more sober and less noisy, and the arrival of Labour members has increased rather than diminished its good behaviour. It is also a far more industrious a.s.sembly, and the influence of the Labour party compels an amount of legislation that honourable members would have thought impossible fifty years ago.