You must not only consider borough constituencies, you must consider county constituencies:  and when persons rise up and urge their claims to be introduced into the constituent body, even if you think there is a plausible claim substantiated on their part, you are bound in policy and justice to consider also the claims of other bodies not in possession of the franchise, but whose right to consideration may be equally great.  And so clear is it when you come to the distribution of power that you must consider the subject in all its bearings, that even honorable gentlemen who have taken part in this debate have not been able to avoid the question of what they call the redistribution of seats—­a very important part of the distribution of power.  It is easy for the honorable member for Liskeard, for example, to rise and say, in supporting this measure for the increase of the borough franchise, that it is impossible any longer to conceal the anomalies of our system in regard to the distribution of seats.  “Is it not monstrous,” he asks, “that Calne, with 173 voters, should return a member, while Glasgow returns only two, with a constituency of 20,000?” Well, it may be equally monstrous that Liskeard should return one member, and that Birkenhead should only make a similar return.  The distribution of seats, as any one must know who has ever considered the subject deeply and with a sense of responsibility towards the country, is one of the most profound and difficult questions that can be brought before the house.  It is all very well to treat it in an easy, offhand manner; but how are you to reconcile the case of North Cheshire, of North Durham, of West Kent, and many other counties, where you find four or six great towns, with a population, perhaps, of 100,000, returning six members to this house, while the rest of the population of the county, though equal in amount, returns only two members?  How are you to meet the case of the representation of South Lancashire in reference to its boroughs?  Why, those are more anomalous than the case of Calne.

Then there is the question of Scotland.  With a population hardly equal to that of the metropolis, and with wealth greatly inferior—­ probably not more than two-thirds of the amount—­Scotland yet possesses forty-eight members, while the metropolis has only twenty.  Do you Reformers mean to say that you are prepared to disfranchise Scotland; or that you are going to develop the representation of the metropolis in proportion to its population and property; and so allow a country like England, so devoted to local government and so influenced by local feeling, to be governed by London?  And, therefore, when those speeches are made which gain a cheer for the moment, and are supposed to be so unanswerable as arguments in favor of parliamentary change, I would recommend the house to recollect that this, as a question, is one of the most difficult and one of the deepest that can possibly engage the attention of the country.