chancellor of the exchequer introduced the Reform bill (March
12) in a speech that, though striking enough, was less impassioned than
some of his later performances in the course of this famous contest. He
did not forget that "the limbo of abortive creations was peopled with the
skeletons of reform bills"; and it was his cue in a House so constituted
as the one before him, to use the language and arguments of moderation and
safety. Franchise was the real question at stake, and to that branch of
reform the bill was limited. The other question of redistributing seats he
likened to fighting in a wood, where there may be any number of partial
encounters, but hardly a great and deciding issue. The only point on which
there was a vital difference was the figure of the borough franchise. In
1859 Mr. Disraeli invented a quackish phrase about lateral extension and
vertical extension, and offered votes to various classes who mainly had
them already, without extending downwards; but whatever else his plan
might do, it opened no door for the workmen. In 1860 the Palmerston
government proposed a six pound occupation franchise for boroughs, and ten
pounds for counties. The proposal of 1866 was seven pounds for boroughs,
and fourteen for counties. We may smile at the thought that some of the
most brilliant debates ever heard in the House of Commons now turned upon
the mighty puzzle whether the qualification for a borough voter should be
occupancy of a ten, a seven, or a six pound house;--nay, whether the ruin
or salvation of the state might not lie on the razor-edge of distinction
between rating and rental. Ministers were taunted with having brought in
Mr. Bright's bill. Mr. Bright replied that he could not find in it a
single point that he had recommended. He was never in favour of a six
pound franchise; he believed in a household franchise; but if a seven
pound franchise was offered, beggars could not be choosers, and seven
pounds he would take. In a fragmentary note of later years Mr. Gladstone,
among other things, describes one glittering protagonist of the hour:--

Lord Russell adhered with great tenacity to his ideas, in which he
was strongly supported by me as his leader in the Commons, and by
Granville and others of the cabinet. Bright, the representative
man of popular ideas, behaved with an admirable combination of
discretion and loyalty. Lowe was an outspoken opponent, so
superstitiously enamoured of