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The discretionary power of the crown was afterwards used in creating petty boroughs such as "the Cornish group," for the purpose of packing the house of commons with crown nominees. This practice, however, ceased in the reign of Charles II., and these petty boroughs fell by degrees into the hands of great landowners, who dictated the choice of representatives.
Now, look for a moment at two or three facts with regard to Ireland alone. I have stated some facts with regard to England and Scotland at recent meetings held across the Channel. Now for two or three facts with regard to Ireland. In Ireland you have five boroughs returning each one Member, the average number of electors in each of these boroughs being only 172.
While the bulk of them grew by simple increase of population from township to town, larger boroughs such as York with its "six shires" or London with its wards and sokes and franchises show how families and groups of settlers settled down side by side, and claimed as they coalesced, each for itself, its shire or share of the town-ground while jealously preserving its individual life within the town-community.
In the same assemblies are also chosen their chiefs or rulers, such as administer justice in their villages and boroughs. To each of these are assigned an hundred persons chosen from amongst the populace, to accompany and assist him, men who help him at once with their authority and their counsel. Without being armed they transact nothing, whether of public or private concernment.
A Parliament was called, and the writs were directed after the old fashion. The small boroughs which had recently been disfranchised regained their lost privilege: Manchester, Leeds, and Halifax ceased to return members; and the county of York was again limited to two knights.
After this, who need wonder if he were told not to talk against rotten boroughs while he himself had a rotten tooth, or endeavour to excite a clamour against corruption when his own flesh was every day liable to be corrupted to the bone? After this, Gentlemen, I trust that you are not to be cheated by such wretched cant. With Mr.
It was made still more evident that as yet the zeal for Reform was confined to a few, when, two years afterward, Pitt, though now invested with all the power of a Prime-minister, was as unable as when in opposition to carry a Reform Bill, which in more than one point foreshadowed the measure of 1832; proposing, as it did, the disfranchisement of thirty-six small boroughs, which were to be purchased of their proprietors nearly on the principle adopted in the Irish Union Act, and on the other hand the enfranchisement of copyholders; but it differed from Lord Grey's act in that it distributed all the seats thus to be obtained among the counties, with the exception of a small addition to the representatives of London and Westminster.
Or was the great parliamentary reform made by Oliver Cromwell ever designated as robbery, even by those who most abhorred his name? Everybody knows that the unsparing manner in which he disfranchised small boroughs was emulously applauded, by royalists, who hated him for having pulled down one dynasty, and by republicans, who hated him for having founded another.
It is true that according to the terms of this report the borough limit of population was raised to 25,000, and the rotten boroughs which for "historical reasons" Mr. Balfour had been loth to disfranchise, were to be swept away, but so far as we are concerned the results would have been much the same, for under its provisions Ireland would have suffered a net loss of 23 seats.
And then the time, the money, the mental energy, which had been expended in making the borough a secure seat for a gentleman who had realised the idea that it would become him to be a member of Parliament! This use of the borough seemed to be realised and approved in the borough generally. The inhabitants had taught themselves to think that it was for such purposes that boroughs were intended!