Thunder & Grumbles

Mine, I fear, is not a well-regulated mind: it has an occasional tenderness for old abuses; it lingers with a certain fondness over the days of nasal clerks and top-booted parsons, and has a sigh for the departed shades of vulgar errors. --George Eliot

In the well-regulated mind of Herbert Morrison, Labor's Leader of the House of Commons, there are few tendernesses for old abuses. Thus, Labor's bill to reapportion seats in Parliament called, as well, for an end to a time-honored anachronism: plural voting. With a battle cry of "One man, one vote," Laborites denounced in particular the custom of having the financial "City" of London and the graduates of British universities elect their own M.P.s*. Last week, Morrison admitted that he could never think of the ancient City of London "without having in my veins some degree of emotion," but: "I am sorry ... I just cannot think of an argument for preserving the City's representation."

Shoreditch v. the City. Even Winston Churchill was hard put to it to pitch his disagreement. But he could not see the old traditions pass without a growling Churchillian salute. Said he:

"They [the government] have destroyed the identity of the City of London and have purloined its name. ... It is now to be submerged by the constituencies of Shoreditch and Finsbury.* There are a lot of very good people in Shoreditch and Finsbury, but I really do not think they will wish to walk about under the false pretense of being the City of London. . . ."

Churchill had a better argument for the university constituencies: "They dignify and widen the whole course of our democratic proceedings." Was the government's motto, he asked, "No brains wanted?" Among the departed great who sat for the universities had been Francis Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton (whose only remembered speech was to ask an usher to close a window), the younger Pitt, Peel, Palmerston and Gladstone.

Sentiment v. Practicality. Some of the present, not-yet-departed great recorded their indignation. Cried learned Sir Arthur Salter (one of Oxford's two M.P.s): "It is a blow ... at learning and education . . . when many people . . . are asking what ... is going to be Socialist equality. Is it going to be a leveling down or a leveling up?" Snapped Sir Alan Patrick Herbert (the other Oxford M.P.) in a letter to the Times: "If we ... are so little thought of by our colleagues, I, at least, do not . . . feel warmly inclined for public service elsewhere." He resigned from the Board of the Thames Conservancy and the literary subcommittee for the Olympic Games.

After all the thunder & grumbles were on the record, the House passed the reapportionment bill, 318 to 6. Most Tories, Churchill included, abstained. From the practical Tory point of view, the bill was not all bad. In its major clauses the bill would redraw constituency boundaries in such a way as to ensure fewer seats for Laborites, more seats for Tories.

*Total of such special seats in the present Parliament: universities, twelve; City of London, two. Under plural voting a privileged Briton could vote (theoretically) several times: once in his residential constituency; again if he was a graduate of Oxford, Cambridge, or one of the other English, Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish universities; again if he had a business in the City; and as many times more, in as many different constituencies, as he owned "business premises." In practice, however, no such voter could cast more than two votes. * U.S. equivalents: Flatbush and the Bronx.

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