that, if you take the
trouble to observe the appearance of those young fellows who follow the
recruiting sergeant in the streets, you will at once say that, among our
labouring classes, they are not the most educated, they are not the
most intelligent. That they are brave, stout lads, I fully believe. Lord
Hardinge tells me that he never saw a finer set of young men; and I have
not the slightest doubt that, if necessary, after a few weeks' training,
they will be found standing up for our firesides against the best
disciplined soldiers that the Continent can produce. But these are not
the qualifications which fit men to choose legislators. A young man who
goes from the ploughtail into the army is generally rather thoughtless
and disposed to idleness. Oh! but there is another qualification which I
had forgotten: the voter must be five feet two. There is a qualification
for you! Only think of measuring a man for the franchise! And this is
the work of a Conservative Government, this plan which would swamp all
the counties in England with electors who possess the Derby-Walpole
qualifications; that is to say, youth, poverty, ignorance, a roving
disposition, and five feet two. Why, what right have people who have
proposed such a change as this to talk about--I do not say Lord John
Russell's imprudence--but the imprudence of Ernest Jones or of any other
Chartist? The Chartists, to do them justice, would give the franchise to
wealth as well as to poverty, to knowledge as well as to ignorance, to
mature age as well as to youth. But to make a qualification compounded
of disqualifications is a feat of which the whole glory belongs to our
Conservative rulers. This astounding proposition was made, I believe, in
a very thin House: but the next day the House was full enough, everybody
having come down to know what was going to happen. One asked, why not
this? and another, why not that? Are all the regular troops to have
the franchise? all the policemen? all the sailors? for, if you give the
franchise to ploughboys of twenty-one, what class of honest Englishmen
and Scotchmen can you with decency exclude? But up gets the Home
Secretary, and informs the House that the plan had not been sufficiently
considered, that some of his colleagues were not satisfied, and that
he would not press his proposition. Now, if it had happened to me to
propose such a reform at one sitting of the House, and at the next
sitting to withdraw it, because it had no