He consequently placed before his colleagues a measure which based the franchise on the occupation of houses rated at L5, coupled with several antidotes to the democratic tendencies of such a change in the shape of “fancy franchises,” which gave votes to men of certain educational and financial qualifications.  His proposals seem to have been accepted by the Cabinet with reluctant and hesitating approval.  On examining more carefully the effects of the L5 franchise upon town constituencies Lord Cranborne (afterwards Lord Salisbury) retracted his previous assent, and Lord Carnarvon followed his lead.

On the very day that Lord Derby and Disraeli were pledged to define their measure they found themselves threatened with the resignation of two most important members of the Government.  At a hasty Cabinet Council, held just before they were to speak, it was agreed, after about twenty minutes’ discussion, that the borough rental should be raised to L6.  The Opposition, however, declared a L6 franchise to be still too high, and they were now backed by a considerable section of the Conservative party itself, who felt that when once they were committed to Reform it would at least be wise to introduce a measure likely to win them popularity as reformers.  Lord Derby and Disraeli yielded to pressure from within their party, and Lord Cranborne, Lord Carnarvon, and General Peel resigned.  The subsequent history of the Bill consisted in a series of surrenders on the part of Disraeli.  All the clauses and qualifications which had originally modified its democratic character were dropped, and Gladstone succeeded in carrying nearly all the amendments his first speech upon the Bill had suggested.

When the Bill finally passed Lord Salisbury described it as a measure based upon the principles of Bright and dictated by Gladstone; and what many Conservatives thought of Disraeli’s conduct is reflected in the speeches of their ally Lowe:  “Never, never was tergiversation so complete.  Such conduct may fail or not; it may lead to the retention or loss of office; but it merits alike the contempt of all honest men and the execration of posterity.” [64] Gladstone, writing to Dr. Pusey at the end of the year, said:  “We have been passing through a strange, eventful year:  a deplorable one, I think, for the character and conduct of the House of Commons; but yet one of promise for the country, though of a promise not unmixed with evils.”  The feeling of romantic Tories in the country is expressed in Coventry Patmore’s poem “1867,” which begins: 

  In the year of the great crime,
  When the false English Nobles and their Jew,
  By God demented, slew
  The Trust they stood twice pledged to keep from wrong.

[64] Morley’s “Life of Gladstone,” vol. ii, p. 235.

The last and longest struggle took place over the compound householder.  On May 17th Mr. Hodgkinson proposed and carried an amendment that in a Parliamentary borough only the occupier should be rated, thus basing, in effect, the franchise upon household suffrage, and forcing upon Disraeli a principle which he had begun by announcing he would never accept.  To make the following letters intelligible it is only necessary to add that in 1866 Lord Amberley had been returned to Parliament as Radical member for Nottingham: