In 1849, Malta was granted a constitution with a partially-elected Council of Government when, for the first time, the Maltese were allowed to vote for eight of the 18 members, albeit in a very restricted franchise. This Constitution, with its ups and downs, endured till 1887 when, on December 12, Letters Patent were promulgated for the formation of a Council of Government consisting of 20 members, 14 of whom were to be elected. It is known as the Knutsford Constitution, named after Sir Henry Holland, First Viscount Knutsford, who was the current Secretary of State for the Colonies.

Maltese local affairs were not so rosy during the last decades of the 19th century, as clearly shown in a letter by the then Governor of Malta, Sir John A. Lintorn Simmons, to Lord Derby, Secretary of State for the Colonies, in which he wrote that “Malta should be regarded as always in a state of siege” and that the Maltese should never have been allowed to have had a Council of Government.

In the council, Simmons was very antagonistic to Dr Fortunato Mizzi and his Anti-Reform Party (and later on, the Partito Nazionale), which was lobbying for a liberal constitution. Local politics had become fully embroiled in what is known as ‘The Language Question’, the tug-of-war between exponents of the Italian and English languages and cultures. Mizzi was vehemently opposed by the anglophile Director of Education Sigismondo Savona.

Simmons’ hostility came to the fore when he used his casting vote on the education estimates against the unanimous vote of the elected members. Two members, Mizzi and Canon Paolo Agius, resigned, and the Anti-Reform Party presented two ridiculous candidates, a brothel keeper and a blacksmith, to contest the ensuing election. They were elected and the council became no better than a charade. The candidates had been presented to show that the council was toothless. Even so, Simmons remained adamant in his hostility. However, this was not the attitude being taken by his superiors in London.

Mizzi improved the organisation of the Partito Nazionale and found the support of Gerald Strickland, who was at the time reading law at Cambridge University. Later on, the two men were to become bitter political adversaries but, on this occasion, they joined forces to present to the British government a project that included a fully representative government for Malta. Actually, two other similar projects were presented by (i) lawyers Zaccaria Roncali and Salvatore Magri, and (ii) by Chev. Vincenzo Bugeja. In London, Mizzi consulted with Strickland and the influential Earl de la Warr and, in 1887, the new Colonial Secretary Sir Henry Holland, summoned the presence of Governor Simmons, who was accompanied by the Maltese Crown Advocate Dr Giuseppe Carbone. Meanwhile, recurring resignations after each election had led to Simmons dissolving the council.

In April 1887, a draft constitution was drawn up but it was so unpopular that it led to widespread political agitation. In May 1887, Savona changed tack, resigned from his post of Director of Education, and began attacking the local government. He had sensed that politics offered him a better future than his government post. In London, amicable discussions between Mizzi, Strickland and the colonial secretary led to the discarding of the other two plans (by Roncali/Magri and Bugeja) and the promulgation of a new more liberal constitution. The ensuing Letters Patent dated December 12, 1887, were sent to Malta together with a despatch signed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, the afore-mentioned Sir Henry Holland.

In his despatch dated December 14, Holland wrote that “the main object which Her Majesty’s Government had in view, …and which the new Letters Patent are designed to effect, is to give to the representatives of the people of Malta, for the first time, a specific power of deciding questions of finance and other questions of local concern”. The new Letters Patent were read out to an invited audience in the Hall of St Michael and St George at the Palace on December 22.

The main object… is to give to representatives of the people of Malta, for the first time, a specific power of deciding questions of finance and other questions of local concern- Despatch dated December 14, 1887, from Sir Henry Holland

The new Council of Government consisted of 21 members with the governor as its president, six official members and 14 elected members. However, the governor had neither an original nor a casting vote. The official members were the following: the chief secretary, the crown advocate and four other public officers chosen from the officers in the Executive Council.

The elected members were divided into two: 10 elected by the general electors from 10 constituencies, each returning a single member (nine for Malta and one for Gozo); the other four represented (one each) the following groups – ecclesiastics, nobility and landowners, graduates from the University of Malta, and the Chamber of Commerce.

In the event of a member being elected to represent both the general and special electors, he was bound to declare within 10 days which election he was accepting, failing which he would be declared as being elected by the general electors. The lifespan of a council, unless dissolved earlier, was three years. Elections were to be held within three months after a council had been dissolved.

A voter for the general elections was to have the following qualifications: they had to be male, aged 21 years or over, with an income of £6 per annum, or paid or received an annual income of £60 from immovable property in Malta in his own right or by his wife.

A special elector was to be a member of one of four corporate groups and had either to have an income of £60 per annum from immovable property in his own right or that of his wife, or paid £60 in rent for immovable property in Malta.

The first elections were held between March 1 and 3, and, just for this election, Malta was considered as a single constituency returning nine members, with Gozo returning the tenth. For the subsequent elections, after a Royal Commission was sent to report on the matter, on March 19, 1888, their findings were incorporated in the Letters Patent. Henceforth, the islands were divided into the following ten constituencies:

District I: Valletta East;

District II: Valletta West, Sliema and St Julian’s;

District III: Floriana, Ħamrun, Pietà and Msida;

District IV: Cospicua and Żabbar;

District V: Vittoriosa and Senglea;

District VI: Mdina and its surroundings;

District VII: Birkirkara and its surroundings;

District VIII: Qormi and its surroundings;

District IX: Żejtun and its surroundings;

District X: Gozo.

The number of ecclesiastics returned by the general elections was limited to two. No employee of the Crown or the Maltese government could be a member of the Council of Government, with the exception of public servants nominated officially.

In 1881, there had been the creation of an Executive Council, consisting of the governor, the officer commanding the troops in Malta and other senior government officials. This body was retained in 1887 but with the addition of not less than three salaried unofficial members selected from among the elected members of the Council of Government. Members of the Executive Council held their position ‘during pleasure’, which meant that their removal could be effected if such instructions were received from London.

The first elections under the 1887 Constitution were held on March 1-3, 1888, with the following results:

Special elections:

Candidates elected:

Strickland, Gerald – for the nobility and landowners: 256 votes

Sceberras, Dr Filippo – for the graduates: 254 votes

Cachia, Mgr Paolo – for the ecclesiastics: uncontested

Mifsud, Lorenzo – for the Chamber of Commerce: uncontested

General elections:

Number of eligible voters: 9,696; number of votes cast: 3,487 (36 per cent)

Grech Mifsud, Oreste, LL.D.: 1,641 votes

Agius, Archpriest Canon Paul: 1,520 votes

Galea, Rev. Dr Teodoro: 1,370 votes

Azzopardi, Calcedonio, Baron of Buleben: 1,345 votes

Chapelle, Alessandro, Baron: 1,312 votes

Lanzon, Antonio: 1,239 votes

Naudi, Enrico: 1,140 votes

Sammut, Paolo: 1,060 votes

Vella, Edoardo, LL.D. : 1,023 votes

Mizzi, Fortunato, LL.D. : uncontested (for Gozo).

All the elected members were supporters of Mizzi’s Anti-Reform Party while Savona’s Reform Party did not elect a single candidate. The governor nominated Dr Oreste Grech Mifsud, Count Gerald Strickland and Dr Fortunato Mizzi to sit on the Executive Council as nominated unofficial members. R. Micallef and E. Galizia were the two nominated official members. The first session of the new Council of Government was inaugurated on March 20, 1888 at the Tapestry Chamber of the Palace, Valletta.

However, in spite of a promising future and a new sense of optimism, disagreements and bickering became the order of the day and dogged the 1887 Constitution throughout its 16-year-long life. This can easily be evinced by the fact that no less than seven elections (most of them early elections) took place between 1888 and 1903 when it was replaced by the 1903 Chamberlain Constitution that imposed a Council of Government that resembled the one of 1849. But that is another story.