of the propriety of enfranchising a single town,
Birmingham. But there were other towns at least equal in importance to
Birmingham which were unrepresented, and it was clearly impossible to
maintain a system which gave representatives to boroughs like Gatton,
Old Sarum, or Corfe Castle--where the electors scarcely outnumbered the
members whom they elected--and withheld them from large and opulent
manufacturing centres like Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield. The
enfranchisement, therefore, of these towns, and of others whose
population and consequent importance, though inferior to theirs, was
still vastly superior to those of many which had hitherto returned
representatives, was so manifestly reasonable and consistent with the
principles of our parliamentary constitution, that it was impossible to
object to it. And their enfranchisement unavoidably led to the
disfranchisement of the smaller boroughs, unless the House of Commons
were to be enlarged to a number which was not likely to tend to the
facilitation of business. Indeed, in the opinion of the framers of the
bill, the House was _already too large_, and they proposed to reduce its
number by upward of sixty--a step to which it is probable that many of
those whose opposition contributed to defeat it subsequently repented of
their resistance. Nevertheless, the line adopted by the Duke of
Wellington's ministry showed that there was still a large party to whom
reform on a large scale was altogether distasteful; and accordingly the
bill which, under the influence of these considerations, Lord Grey's
administration brought forward in the spring of 1831, gave rise to the
fiercest struggles in both Houses of Parliament that had been witnessed
for many generations. One Parliament was dissolved; two sessions of that
which followed were opened in a single year; once the ministry itself
was dissolved, though speedily reconstructed; and three bills were
framed, each in some degree differing from its predecessor in some of
its details, though all preserved the same leading principles of
disfranchising wholly or partially the smaller boroughs; of
enfranchising several large and growing towns; of increasing the number
of county representatives; and of enfranchising also some classes which
previously had had no right of voting. It would be a waste of time to
specify the variations in the three bills. It is sufficient to confine
our attention to that which eventually became law. Fifty-s