Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/419

 1 85 5] Death of Peel to Resignation of Aberdeen. 405 brought in the promised Reform Bill. It was long and com- plicated, and had evidently been the result of a good deal of thought, but was certainly not worth the trouble that had been taken over it. The little good there was in it was a mere extension of the Act of 1832 ; the new parts were fanciful and worse than useless. Of popular extension of the suffrage there was practically none, for the borough franchise was fixed at a 6 ratal, with two and a half years' residence as a qualification ; and the county franchise was given to ,10 occupiers, provided 5 a year at least was the bond fide rent of buildings apart from land. There were what Mr. Bright afterwards called "fancy franchises," in abundance. Persons receiving ^100 a year salary provided it was paid quarterly, so that a workman should not be included ; those who derived 10 a year from stock or dividends ; all who paid forty shillings a year to assessed taxes, income tax, or licence duty, or who had 50 in a saving-bank of three years' standing, were to have borough or county votes. The tens and the hundreds were carefully looked after, but the thousands and the millions were as carefully excluded. And lest, after all, the really popular constituencies should obtain too much power, there was for the first time the miserable proposal of a minority clause that refuge of the half-hearted who, pretending to trust the people, have no true confidence in them ; who try to evade the national will which they dare not openly contest ; and who make of national politics a game of shuffling intrigue instead of an honest dependence upon democratic principles. The disfranchisement clauses were like an appendix to the great Reform Bill, except that the seats taken from small boroughs were to be given principally to counties. The thing, however, was important only as showing how little of the popular element there was in the Whig idea of reform, for on the nth of April the measure, which had of course excited no enthusiasm anywhere, was formally withdrawn. In the intervals of discussion on the Eastern question, the. Radicals made various efforts to advance some of the subjects