Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/448

 434 History of the Radical Party in Parliament. [1855- revenue, and that such financial arrangements should be made as would enable Parliament to dispense with it. The first part of the resolution was accepted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and carried. The session not a pleasant one for either Whigs or Tories was closed on the 3rd of August. Parliament met on the 3rd of February, 1859, the Queen's speech saying, " Your attention will be called to the state of the laws which regulate the representation of the people in Parliament." The Radicals opened the campaign early. On the 7th of February Mr. Dillwyn obtained leave to bring in a bill on endowed schools ; on the 8th Trelawney re- introduced his Church Rates Bill ; and on the i/th of the same month Locke King took a similar step with regard to the abolition of the law of primogeniture. Of these questions that which related to church rates led to the most important discussions and divisions. On the 2 1st of February Walpole brought in and explained a Government scheme for dealing with the subject. The plan might have been called a pro- vision for making church rates perpetual. It proposed to make the rate a landlords' rate ; to enable owners to make existing rates a charge on land ; to allow tenants to recover the rate from landlords ; and to exempt from payment those who sign a written paper claiming exemption on the ground of being dissenters. Such a compromise was evidently impracticable. On the gth of March the Government bill was defeated, on the motion for its second reading, by 254 to 171 ; and on the I5th of March Trelawney's abolition bill was read a second time by 242 to 168. The ministerial crisis and dissolution prevented further progress with the measure. The catastrophe was brought about by the attempt of the Government to deal with the reform question. The proposal was an almost unmitigated piece of what is sometimes called Parliamentary strategy, but what plain people call political trickery. It had but one redeeming feature in it the reduction of the county franchise, and that was accompanied by provisions for alteration of boundaries, the disfranchise-