The Reform Bill of 1854
Page 491
In cabinet on Wednesday Lord John Russell opened the question of the Reform bill, stated the prospect of defeat on Sir E. Dering’s motion, and expressed his willingness to postpone the measure until the 27th April. Lord Palmerston recommended postponement altogether. Lord Aberdeen and Graham were averse to any postponement, the latter even declaring his opinion that we ought at the time when the Queen’s Speech was framed to have assumed the present state of circumstances as inevitable, and that, therefore, we had no apology or ground for change; further, that we ought if necessary to dissolve upon defeat in order to carry the measure. No one else went this length. All the three I have named were, from their different points of view, disposed to concur in the expedient of postponement, which none of them preferred on its merits. Of the rest of the cabinet, Molesworth and I expressed decidedly our preference for the more decided course of at once giving up the bill for the year, as did the chancellor, and this for the ultimate interest of the plan itself. Lord Lansdowne, Wood, Clarendon, Herbert were all, with more or less decision of phrase, in the same sense. Newcastle, Granville, and Argyll were, I believe, of the same mind. But all were willing to accept the postponement until April 27, rather than the very serious alternative. Molesworth and I both expressed our apprehension that this course would in the end subject the government to far more of censure and of suspicion than if we dealt with the difficulty at once. Next day Lord John came to see me, and told me he had the idea that in April it might probably be found advisable to divide the part of the bill which enfranchises new classes from that which disfranchises places and redistributes seats; with a view of passing the first and letting the latter take its chance; as the popular feeling would tell for the first while the selfish interests were provoked by the last. He thought that withdrawal of the bill was equivalent to defeat, and that either must lead to a summary winding up of the session. I said the division of the bill was a new idea and a new light to me; but observed that it would by no means help Graham, who felt himself chiefly tied to the disfranchising part; and submitted to him that his view of a withdrawal of the bill, given such circumstances as would alone induce the cabinet to think of it, was more unfavourable than the case warranted—March 3, 1854.
CIVIL SERVICE REFORM
Page 511
Extracts from a letter to Lord John Russell, Jan. 20, 1854
... I do not hesitate to say that one of the great recommendations of the change in my eyes would be its tendency to strengthen and multiply the ties between the higher classes and the possession of administrative power. As a member for Oxford, I look forward eagerly to its operation. There, happily, we are not without some lights of experience to throw upon this part of the subject. The objection which I always hear there from persons who wish to retain restrictions upon elections is this: ‘If you leave them to examination, Eton, Harrow, Rugby, and the other public schools will carry everything.’ I have a strong impression that the aristocracy of this country are even superior in natural gifts, on the average, to the mass: but it is plain that with their acquired advantages, their insensible education, irrespective of book-learning, they have an immense superiority. This applies in its degree to all those who may be called gentlemen by birth and training; and it must be remembered that an essential part of any such plan as is now under discussion is the separation of work, wherever it can be made, into mechanical and intellectual, a separation which will open to the highly educated class a career, and give them a command over all the higher parts of the civil service, which up to this time they have never enjoyed....
I must admit that the aggregate means now possessed by government for carrying on business in the House of Commons are not in excess of the real need, and will not bear serious diminution. I remember being alarmed as a young man when Lord Althorp said, or was said to have said, that this country could no longer be governed by patronage. But while sitting thirteen years for a borough with a humble constituency, and spending near ten of them in opposition, I was struck by finding that the loss or gain of access to government patronage was not traceable in its effect upon the local political influences. I concluded from this that it was not the intrinsic value of patronage (which is really none, inasmuch as it does not, or ought not, to multiply the aggregate number of places to be given, but only acts on the mode of giving them) that was regarded, but simply that each party liked and claimed to be upon a footing of equality with their neighbours. Just in the same way, it was considered necessary that bandsmen, flagmen, and the rest, should be paid four times the value of their services, without any intention of bribery, but because it was the custom, and was done on the other side—in places where this was thought essential, it has now utterly vanished away, and yet the people vote and work for their cause as zealously as they did before. May not this after all be found to be the case in the House of Commons as well as in many constituencies?...
It might increase the uncertainties of the government in the House of Commons on particular nights; but is not the hold even now uncertain as compared with what it was thirty or forty years ago; and is it really weaker for general and for good purposes, on account of that uncertainty, than it then was? I have heard you explain with great force to the House this change in the position of governments since the Reform bill, as a legitimate accompaniment of changes in our political state, by virtue of which we appeal more to reason, less to habit, direct interest, or force. May not this be another legitimate and measured step in the same direction? May we not get, I will not say more ease and certainty for the leader of the House, but more real and more honourable strength with the better and, in the long run, the ruling part of the community, by a signal proof of cordial desire that the processes by which government is carried on should not in elections only, but elsewhere too be honourable and pure? I speak with diffidence; but remembering that at the revolution we passed over from prerogative to patronage, and that since the revolution we have also passed from bribery to influence, I cannot think the process is to end here; and after all we have seen of the good sense and good feeling of the community, though it may be too sanguine, I cherish the hope that the day is now near at hand, or actually come, when in pursuit not of visionary notions, but of a great practical and economical improvement, we may safely give yet one more new and striking sign of rational confidence in the intelligence and character of the people.