POLITICAL HISTORY 



unable to pass. Mr. Gladstone was the leader of this enterprise. The Bill 

 was presented by Mr. Disraeli in March, 1867, and it was on the eighteenth 

 analysed by Mr. Gladstone in a searching and critical manner.*" When it 

 came up for second reading Mr. Bright ' expressed a more uncompromising 

 hostility to the Bill than Mr. Gladstone had done.' He remarked of it that 

 it was a measure which from the working class point of view had in it 

 ' nothing generous, nothing statesmanlike.' In an eloquent speech he con- 

 demned the Bill both as bearing upon its face 



marks of deception and disappointment and because I will be no party to any measure which 

 shall so cheat the great body of my countrymen of the possession of that power in this House 

 on which they have set their hearts and which as I believe by the constitution of this country 

 they may most justly claim."'' 



On a defection of some Liberals Mr. Gladstone threatened to resign his place 

 as leader of the Opposition, and this had the effect of causing many public 

 meetings throughout the country and in Lancashire, where special votes of 

 confidence in Mr. Gladstone were passed.*^' There were meetings at Man- 

 chester, Liverpool, Ashton, Newton, and other places. 



On 1 1 May a great deputation from the North of England waited on 

 Mr. Gladstone to assure him of their support and of their confidence in his 

 work for the cause of amending the Bill. Among these were seventeen 

 members of Parliament, including Mr. Bright and Mr. George Wilson of 

 Manchester, the 'venerable champion of Free Trade.' "* After a stormy passage 

 the Bill finally was amended by the Liberals into the form in which in 

 August, 1867, it passed the Lords and received the royal assent under the 

 title of Representation of the People Act. This Bill gave the household 

 suffrage as we know it to-day, to men who had been in residence in any 

 borough for one year and who had paid the ordinary poor rate for that year, 

 and also to male lodgers in any house where the rent of such unfurnished 

 lodgings was of the value of j^io and upwards. The county vote was lowered 

 to owners of estate of the clear yearly value of _^5, or to occupiers of lands 

 and tenements of the rateable value of j^i2 on which the poor rate had been 

 paid. In respect of ' Distribution of Seats,' boroughs of less population than 

 10,000 in 1 861 were to return only one member each. Lancaster, which 

 had returned two members, was disfranchised, but Burnley and Stalybridge, 

 hitherto unrepresented, each received a member. Manchester and Liverpool 

 were assigned three members each in place of two. Salford received an 

 additional member and the county was for voting purposes subdivided into 

 four divisions, North and North-East Lancashire, South-East and South- West 

 Lancashire, each division being represented by two members, making a total 

 of eight members for the shire. In 1832 Lord Derby's eldest son, the Rt. Hon. 

 E. G. Smith-Stanley (Lord Stanley by courtesy) was the Liberal member for 

 North Lancashire and Mr. J. Wilson Patten was the Conservative representative 

 of the same division. In 1837, however, as Lord Stanley the former joined 

 Mr. J. Wilson Patten as a Conservative representative and represented this 

 part of the shire till 1844. 



In 1847 one Liberal member was returned and again Mr. Wilson Patten 

 for the Conservatives. The latter retained the seat till 1878, when he retired 



"' H. Cox, the Reform Bills of 1866 and 1867, 124-33. "' Hansard, vol. 186, col. 642. 



=" Cox, Hist, of the Reform Bills, 173-4. "* Ibid. 199. 



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