Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 4
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Title: Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 4
Author: Baron Thomas Babington Macaulay Macaulay
Release date: June 26, 2008 [eBook #2170]
Most recently updated: July 14, 2008
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2170
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS AND SPEECHES — VOLUME 4 ***
Produced by Mike Alder and Sue Asscher
THE MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS AND SPEECHES OF LORD MACAULAY.
Lord Macaulay's Speeches
By Thomas Babington Macaulay
VOLUME IV.
LORD MACAULAY'S SPEECHES.
TO HENRY, MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE
THESE SPEECHES ARE DEDICATED BY HIS GRATEFUL
AND AFFECTIONATE FRIEND
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY.
PREFACE.
It was most reluctantly that I determined to suspend, during the last
autumn, a work which is the business and the pleasure of my life,
in order to prepare these Speeches for publication; and it is most
reluctantly that I now give them to the world. Even if I estimated their
oratorical merit much more highly than I do, I should not willingly have
revived, in the quiet times in which we are so happy as to live, the
memory of those fierce contentions in which too many years of my public
life were passed. Many expressions which, when society was convulsed
by political dissensions, and when the foundations of government were
shaking, were heard by an excited audience with sympathy and applause,
may, now that the passions of all parties have subsided, be thought
intemperate and acrimonious. It was especially painful to me to find
myself under the necessity of recalling to my own recollection, and to
the recollection of others, the keen encounters which took place between
the late Sir Robert Peel and myself. Some parts of the conduct of that
eminent man I must always think deserving of serious blame. But, on a
calm review of his long and chequered public life, I acknowledge, with
sincere pleasure, that his faults were much more than redeemed by great
virtues, great sacrifices, and great services. My political hostility to
him was never in the smallest degree tainted by personal ill-will. After
his fall from power a cordial reconciliation took place between us: I
admired the wisdom, the moderation, the disinterested patriotism, which
he invariably showed during the last and best years of his life; I
lamented his untimely death, as both a private and a public calamity;
and I earnestly wished that the sharp words which had sometimes been
exchanged between us might be forgotten.
Unhappily an act, for which the law affords no redress, but which I
have no hesitation in pronouncing to be a gross injury to me and a gross
fraud on the public, has compelled me to do what I should never have
done willingly. A bookseller, named Vizetelly, who seems to aspire to
that sort of distinction which Curll enjoyed a hundred and twenty years
ago, thought fit, without asking my consent, without even giving me any
notice, to announce an edition of my Speeches, and was not ashamed to
tell the world in his advertisement that he published them by special
license. When the book appeared, I found that it contained fifty-six
speeches, said to have been delivered by me in the House of Commons. Of
these speeches a few were reprinted from reports which I had corrected
for the Mirror of Parliament or the Parliamentary Debates, and were
therefore, with the exception of some errors of the pen and the press,
correctly given. The rest bear scarcely the faintest resemblance to
the speeches which I really made. The substance of what I said
is perpetually misrepresented. The connection of the arguments is
altogether lost. Extravagant blunders are put into my mouth in almost
every page. An editor who was not grossly ignorant would have perceived
that no person to whom the House of Commons would listen could possibly
have been guilty of such blunders. An editor who had the smallest
regard for truth, or for the fame of the person whose speeches he had
undertaken to publish, would have had recourse to the various sources of
information which were readily accessible, and, by collating them, would
have produced a book which would at least have contained no absolute
nonsense. But I have unfortunately had an editor whose only object was
to make a few pounds, and who was willing to sacrifice to that object my
reputation and his own. He took the very worst report extant, compared
it with no other report, removed no blemish however obvious or however
ludicrous, gave to the world some hundreds of pages utterly contemptible
both in matter and manner, and prefixed my name to them. The least that
he should have done was to consult the files of The Times newspaper.
I have frequently done so, when I have noticed in his book any passage
more than ordinarily absurd; and I have almost invariably found that
in The Times newspaper, my meaning had been correctly reported, though
often in words different from those which I had used.
I could fill a volume with instances of the injustice with which I have
been treated. But I will confine myself to a single speech, the speech
on the Dissenters' Chapels Bill. I have selected that speech, not
because Mr Vizetelly's version of that speech is worse than his versions
of thirty or forty other speeches, but because I have before me a report
of that speech which an honest and diligent editor would have thought it
his first duty to consult. The report of which I speak was published by
the Unitarian Dissenters, who were naturally desirous that there should
be an accurate record of what had passed in a debate deeply interesting
to them. It was not corrected by me: but it generally, though not
uniformly, exhibits with fidelity the substance of what I said.
Mr Vizetelly makes me say that the principle of our Statutes of
Limitation was to be found in the legislation of the Mexicans and
Peruvians. That is a matter about which, as I know nothing, I certainly
said nothing. Neither in The Times nor in the Unitarian report is there
anything about Mexico or Peru.
Mr Vizetelly next makes me say that the principle of limitation is found
"amongst the Pandects of the Benares." Did my editor believe that I
uttered these words, and that the House of Commons listened patiently
to them? If he did, what must be thought of his understanding? If he did
not, was it the part of an honest man to publish such gibberish as mine?
The most charitable supposition, which I therefore gladly adopt, is
that Mr Vizetelly saw nothing absurd in the expression which he has
attributed to me. The Benares he probably supposes to be some Oriental
nation. What he supposes their Pandects to be I shall not presume to
guess. If he had examined The Times, he would have found no trace of the
passage. The reporter, probably, did not catch what I said, and, being
more veracious than Mr Vizetelly, did not choose to ascribe to me what
I did not say. If Mr Vizetelly had consulted the Unitarian report, he
would have seen that I spoke of the Pundits of Benares; and he might,
without any very long or costly research, have learned where Benares is,
and what a Pundit is.
Mr Vizetelly then represents me as giving the House of Commons some very
extraordinary information about both the Calvinistic and the Arminian
Methodists. He makes me say that Whitfield held and taught that the
connection between Church and State was sinful. Whitfield never held
or taught any such thing; nor was I so grossly ignorant of the life and
character of that remarkable man as to impute to him a doctrine which he
would have abhorred. Here again, both in The Times and in the Unitarian
report, the substance of what I said is correctly given.
Mr Vizetelly proceeds to put into my mouth a curious account of the
polity of the Wesleyan Methodists. He makes me say that, after John
Wesley's death, "the feeling in favour of the lay administration of the
Sacrament became very strong and very general: a Conference was applied
for, was constituted, and, after some discussion, it was determined that
the request should be granted." Such folly could have been uttered only
by a person profoundly ignorant of the history of Methodism. Certainly
nothing of the sort was ever uttered by me; and nothing of the sort will
be found either in The Times or in the Unitarian report.
Mr Vizetelly makes me say that the Great Charter recognises the
principle of limitation, a thing which everybody who has read the Great
Charter knows not to be true. He makes me give an utterly false history
of Lord Nottingham's Occasional Conformity Bill. But I will not weary
my readers by proceeding further. These samples will probably be thought
sufficient. They all lie within a compass of seven or eight pages. It
will be observed that all the faults which I have pointed out are grave
faults of substance. Slighter faults of substance are numerous. As to
faults of syntax and of style, hardly one sentence in a hundred is free
from them.
I cannot permit myself to be exhibited, in this ridiculous and degrading
manner, for the profit of an unprincipled man. I therefore unwillingly,
and in mere self-defence, give this volume to the public. I have
selected, to the best of my judgment, from among my speeches, those
which are the least unworthy to be preserved. Nine of them were
corrected by me while they were still fresh in my memory, and appear
almost word for word as they were spoken. They are the speech of the
second of March 1831, the speech of the twentieth of September 1831,
the speech of the tenth of October 1831, the speech of the sixteenth of
December 1831, the speech on the Anatomy Bill, the speech on the India
Bill, the speech on Serjeant Talfourd's Copyright Bill, the speech on
the Sugar Duties, and the speech on the Irish Church. The substance of
the remaining speeches I have given with perfect ingenuousness. I have
not made alterations for the purpose of saving my own reputation either
for consistency or for foresight. I have not softened down the strong
terms in which I formerly expressed opinions which time and thought may
have modified; nor have I retouched my predictions in order to make them
correspond with subsequent events. Had I represented myself as speaking
in 1831, in 1840, or in 1845, as I should speak in 1853, I should have
deprived my book of its chief value. This volume is now at least a
strictly honest record of opinions and reasonings which were heard
with favour by a large part of the Commons of England at some important
conjunctures; and such a record, however low it may stand in the
estimation of the literary critic, cannot but be of use to the
historian.
I do not pretend to give with accuracy the diction of those speeches
which I did not myself correct within a week after they were delivered.
Many expressions, and a few paragraphs, linger in my memory. But
the rest, including much that had been carefully premeditated, is
irrecoverably lost. Nor have I, in this part of my task, derived much
assistance from any report. My delivery is, I believe, too rapid. Very
able shorthand writers have sometimes complained that they could not
follow me, and have contented themselves with setting down the substance
of what I said. As I am unable to recall the precise words which I used,
I have done my best to put my meaning into words which I might have
used.
I have only, in conclusion, to beg that the readers of this Preface will
pardon an egotism which a great wrong has made necessary, and which is
quite as disagreeable to myself as it can be to them.
CONTENTS.
Parliamentary Reform. (March 2, 1831)
Parliamentary Reform. (July 5, 1831)
Parliamentary Reform. (September 20, 1831)
Parliamentary Reform. (October 10, 1831)
Parliamentary Reform. (December 16, 1831)
Anatomy Bill. (February 27, 1832)
Parliamentary Reform. (February 28, 1832)
Repeal of the Union with Ireland. (February 6, 1833)
Jewish Disabilities. (April 17, 1833)
Government of India. (July 10, 1833)
Edinburgh Election, 1839. (May 29, 1839)
Confidence in the Ministry of Lord Melbourne. (January 29, 1840)
War with China. (April 7, 1840)
Copyright. (February 5, 1841)
Copyright. (April 6, 1842)
The People's Charter. (May 3, 1842)
The Gates of Somnauth. (March 9, 1843)
The State of Ireland. (February 19, 1844)
Dissenters' Chapels Bill. (June 6, 1844)
The Sugar Duties. (February 26, 1845)
Maynooth. (April 14, 1845)
The Church of Ireland. (April 23, 1845)
Theological Tests in the Scotch Universities. (July 9, 1845)
Corn Laws. (December 2, 1845)
The Ten Hours Bill. (May 22, 1846)
The Literature of Britain. (November 4, 1846)
Education. (April 19, 1847)
Inaugural Speech at Glasgow College. (March 21, 1849)
Re-election to Parliament. (November 2, 1852)
Exclusion of Judges from the House of Commons. (June 1, 1853)
SPEECHES, ETC.
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. (MARCH 2, 1831) A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF
COMMONS ON THE 2D OF MARCH, 1831.
On Tuesday, the first of March, 1831, Lord John Russell moved the House
of Commons for leave to bring in a bill to amend the representation of
the people in England and Wales. The discussion occupied seven nights.
At length, on the morning of Thursday, the tenth of March, the motion
was carried without a division. The following speech was made on the
second night of the debate.
It is a circumstance, Sir, of happy augury for the motion before
the House, that almost all those who have opposed it have declared
themselves hostile on principle to Parliamentary Reform. Two Members,
I think, have confessed that, though they disapprove of the plan now
submitted to us, they are forced to admit the necessity of a change in
the Representative system. Yet even those gentleman have used, as far as
I have observed, no arguments which would not apply as strongly to the
most moderate change as to that which has been proposed by His Majesty's
Government. I say, Sir, that I consider this as a circumstance of happy
augury. For what I feared was, not the opposition of those who are
averse to all Reform, but the disunion of reformers. I knew that, during
three months, every reformer had been employed in conjecturing what the
plan of the Government would be. I knew that every reformer had imagined
in his own mind a scheme differing doubtless in some points from that
which my noble friend, the Paymaster of the Forces, has developed. I
felt therefore great apprehension that one person would be dissatisfied
with one part of the bill, that another person would be dissatisfied
with another part, and that thus our whole strength would be wasted in
internal dissensions. That apprehension is now at an end. I have seen
with delight the perfect concord which prevails among all who deserve
the name of reformers in this House; and I trust that I may consider it
as an omen of the concord which will prevail among reformers throughout
the country. I will not, Sir, at present express any opinion as to the
details of the bill; but, having during the last twenty-four hours given
the most diligent consideration to its general principles, I have no
hesitation in pronouncing it a wise, noble, and comprehensive measure,
skilfully framed for the healing of great distempers, for the securing
at once of the public liberties, and of the public repose, and for the
reconciling and knitting together of all the orders of the State.
The honourable Baronet who has just sat down (Sir John Walsh.), has
told us, that the Ministers have attempted to unite two inconsistent
principles in one abortive measure. Those were his very words. He
thinks, if I understand him rightly, that we ought either to leave
the representative system such as it is, or to make it perfectly
symmetrical. I think, Sir, that the Ministers would have acted unwisely
if they had taken either course. Their principle is plain, rational, and
consistent. It is this, to admit the middle class to a large and
direct share in the representation, without any violent shock to the
institutions of our country. I understand those cheers: but surely the
gentlemen who utter them will allow that the change which will be made
in our institutions by this bill is far less violent than that which,
according to the honourable Baronet, ought to be made if we make any
Reform at all. I praise the Ministers for not attempting, at the present
time, to make the representation uniform. I praise them for not effacing
the old distinction between the towns and the counties, and for not
assigning Members to districts, according to the American practice, by
the Rule of Three. The Government has, in my opinion, done all that was
necessary for the removing of a great practical evil, and no more than
was necessary.
I consider this, Sir, as a practical question. I rest my opinion on
no general theory of government. I distrust all general theories of
government. I will not positively say, that there is any form of polity
which may not, in some conceivable circumstances, be the best possible.
I believe that there are societies in which every man may safely be
admitted to vote. Gentlemen may cheer, but such is my opinion. I say,
Sir, that there are countries in which the condition of the labouring
classes is such that they may safely be intrusted with the right of
electing Members of the Legislature. If the labourers of England were
in that state in which I, from my soul, wish to see them, if employment
were always plentiful, wages always high, food always cheap, if a large
family were considered not as an encumbrance but as a blessing, the
principal objections to Universal Suffrage would, I think, be removed.
Universal Suffrage exists in the United States, without producing any
very frightful consequences; and I do not believe that the people of
those States, or of any part of the world, are in any good quality
naturally superior to our own countrymen. But, unhappily, the labouring
classes in England, and in all old countries, are occasionally in a
state of great distress. Some of the causes of this distress are, I
fear, beyond the control of the Government. We know what effect distress
produces, even on people more intelligent than the great body of the
labouring classes can possibly be. We know that it makes even wise men
irritable, unreasonable, credulous, eager for immediate relief, heedless
of remote consequences. There is no quackery in medicine, religion, or
politics, which may not impose even on a powerful mind, when that mind
has been disordered by pain or fear. It is therefore no reflection
on the poorer class of Englishmen, who are not, and who cannot in the
nature of things be, highly educated, to say that distress produces on
them its natural effects, those effects which it would produce on the
Americans, or on any other people, that it blinds their judgment, that
it inflames their passions, that it makes them prone to believe those
who flatter them, and to distrust those who would serve them. For the
sake, therefore, of the whole society, for the sake of the labouring
classes themselves, I hold it to be clearly expedient that, in a
country like this, the right of suffrage should depend on a pecuniary
qualification.
But, Sir, every argument which would induce me to oppose Universal
Suffrage, induces me to support the plan which is now before us. I am
opposed to Universal Suffrage, because I think that it would produce a
destructive revolution. I support this plan, because I am sure that it
is our best security against a revolution. The noble Paymaster of the
Forces hinted, delicately indeed and remotely, at this subject. He spoke
of the danger of disappointing the expectations of the nation; and for
this he was charged with threatening the House. Sir, in the year 1817,
the late Lord Londonderry proposed a suspension of the Habeas Corpus
Act. On that occasion he told the House that, unless the measures which
he recommended were adopted, the public peace could not be preserved.
Was he accused of threatening the House? Again, in the year 1819, he
proposed the laws known by the name of the Six Acts. He then told
the House that, unless the executive power were reinforced, all the
institutions of the country would be overturned by popular violence. Was
he then accused of threatening the House? Will any gentleman say that
it is parliamentary and decorous to urge the danger arising from popular
discontent as an argument for severity; but that it is unparliamentary
and indecorous to urge that same danger as an argument for conciliation?
I, Sir, do entertain great apprehension for the fate of my country. I do
in my conscience believe that, unless the plan proposed, or some similar
plan, be speedily adopted, great and terrible calamities will befall us.
Entertaining this opinion, I think myself bound to state it, not as a
threat, but as a reason. I support this bill because it will improve our
institutions; but I support it also because it tends to preserve them.
That we may exclude those whom it is necessary to exclude, we must admit
those whom it may be safe to admit. At present we oppose the schemes of
revolutionists with only one half, with only one quarter of our proper
force. We say, and we say justly, that it is not by mere numbers, but
by property and intelligence, that the nation ought to be governed. Yet,
saying this, we exclude from all share in the government great masses
of property and intelligence, great numbers of those who are most
interested in preserving tranquillity, and who know best how to preserve
it. We do more. We drive over to the side of revolution those whom we
shut out from power. Is this a time when the cause of law and order can
spare one of its natural allies?
My noble friend, the Paymaster of the Forces, happily described the
effect which some parts of our representative system would produce
on the mind of a foreigner, who had heard much of our freedom and
greatness. If, Sir, I wished to make such a foreigner clearly understand
what I consider as the great defects of our system, I would conduct
him through that immense city which lies to the north of Great Russell
Street and Oxford Street, a city superior in size and in population to
the capitals of many mighty kingdoms; and probably superior in opulence,
intelligence, and general respectability, to any city in the world. I
would conduct him through that interminable succession of streets and
squares, all consisting of well built and well furnished houses. I
would make him observe the brilliancy of the shops, and the crowd of
well-appointed equipages. I would show him that magnificent circle of
palaces which surrounds the Regent's Park. I would tell him that the
rental of this district was far greater than that of the whole kingdom
of Scotland, at the time of the Union. And then I would tell him that
this was an unrepresented district. It is needless to give any more
instances. It is needless to speak of Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds,
Sheffield, with no representation, or of Edinburgh and Glasgow with a
mock representation. If a property tax were now imposed on the principle
that no person who had less than a hundred and fifty pounds a year
should contribute, I should not be surprised to find that one half in
number and value of the contributors had no votes at all; and it would,
beyond all doubt, be found that one fiftieth part in number and value of
the contributors had a larger share of the representation than the
other forty-nine fiftieths. This is not government by property. It
is government by certain detached portions and fragments of property,
selected from the rest, and preferred to the rest, on no rational
principle whatever.
To say that such a system is ancient, is no defence. My honourable
friend, the Member for the University of Oxford (Sir Robert Harry
Inglis.), challenges us to show that the Constitution was ever better
than it is. Sir, we are legislators, not antiquaries. The question for
us is, not whether the Constitution was better formerly, but whether we
can make it better now. In fact, however, the system was not in ancient
times by any means so absurd as it is in our age. One noble Lord (Lord
Stormont.) has to-night told us that the town of Aldborough, which he
represents, was not larger in the time of Edward the First than it is at
present. The line of its walls, he assures us, may still be traced. It
is now built up to that line. He argues, therefore, that as the founders
of our representative institutions gave members to Aldborough when it
was as small as it now is, those who would disfranchise it on account
of its smallness have no right to say that they are recurring to the
original principle of our representative institutions. But does the
noble Lord remember the change which has taken place in the country
during the last five centuries? Does he remember how much England has
grown in population, while Aldborough has been standing still? Does
he consider, that in the time of Edward the First, the kingdom did not
contain two millions of inhabitants? It now contains nearly fourteen
millions. A hamlet of the present day would have been a town of some
importance in the time of our early Parliaments. Aldborough may be
absolutely as considerable a place as ever. But compared with the
kingdom, it is much less considerable, by the noble Lord's own showing,
than when it first elected burgesses. My honourable friend, the Member
for the University of Oxford, has collected numerous instances of the
tyranny which the kings and nobles anciently exercised, both over this
House and over the electors. It is not strange that, in times
when nothing was held sacred, the rights of the people, and of the
representatives of the people, should not have been held sacred. The
proceedings which my honourable friend has mentioned, no more prove
that, by the ancient constitution of the realm, this House ought to be
a tool of the king and of the aristocracy, than the Benevolences and the
Shipmoney prove their own legality, or than those unjustifiable arrests
which took place long after the ratification of the great Charter
and even after the Petition of Right, prove that the subject was not
anciently entitled to his personal liberty. We talk of the wisdom of
our ancestors: and in one respect at least they were wiser than we. They
legislated for their own times. They looked at the England which was
before them. They did not think it necessary to give twice as many
Members to York as they gave to London, because York had been the
capital of Britain in the time of Constantius Chlorus; and they would
have been amazed indeed if they had foreseen, that a city of more than
a hundred thousand inhabitants would be left without Representatives in
the nineteenth century, merely because it stood on ground which in
the thirteenth century had been occupied by a few huts. They framed
a representative system, which, though not without defects and
irregularities, was well adapted to the state of England in their time.
But a great revolution took place. The character of the old corporations
changed. New forms of property came into existence. New portions of
society rose into importance. There were in our rural districts rich
cultivators, who were not freeholders. There were in our capital rich
traders, who were not liverymen. Towns shrank into villages. Villages
swelled into cities larger than the London of the Plantagenets.
Unhappily while the natural growth of society went on, the artificial
polity continued unchanged. The ancient form of the representation
remained; and precisely because the form remained, the spirit departed.
Then came that pressure almost to bursting, the new wine in the old
bottles, the new society under the old institutions. It is now time for
us to pay a decent, a rational, a manly reverence to our ancestors, not
by superstitiously adhering to what they, in other circumstances, did,
but by doing what they, in our circumstances, would have done. All
history is full of revolutions, produced by causes similar to those
which are now operating in England. A portion of the community which had
been of no account expands and becomes strong. It demands a place in the
system, suited, not to its former weakness, but to its present power.
If this is granted, all is well. If this is refused, then comes
the struggle between the young energy of one class and the ancient
privileges of another. Such was the struggle between the Plebeians and
the Patricians of Rome. Such was the struggle of the Italian allies for
admission to the full rights of Roman citizens. Such was the struggle
of our North American colonies against the mother country. Such was
the struggle which the Third Estate of France maintained against the
aristocracy of birth. Such was the struggle which the Roman Catholics
of Ireland maintained against the aristocracy of creed. Such is the
struggle which the free people of colour in Jamaica are now maintaining
against the aristocracy of skin. Such, finally, is the struggle which
the middle classes in England are maintaining against an aristocracy
of mere locality, against an aristocracy the principle of which is to
invest a hundred drunken potwallopers in one place, or the owner of
a ruined hovel in another, with powers which are withheld from cities
renowned to the furthest ends of the earth, for the marvels of their
wealth and of their industry.
But these great cities, says my honourable friend the Member for the
University of Oxford, are virtually, though not directly, represented.
Are not the wishes of Manchester, he asks, as much consulted as those
of any town which sends Members to Parliament? Now, Sir, I do not
understand how a power which is salutary when exercised virtually can
be noxious when exercised directly. If the wishes of Manchester have as
much weight with us as they would have under a system which should give
Representatives to Manchester, how can there be any danger in giving
Representatives to Manchester? A virtual Representative is, I presume,
a man who acts as a direct Representative would act: for surely it
would be absurd to say that a man virtually represents the people
of Manchester, who is in the habit of saying No, when a man directly
representing the people of Manchester would say Aye. The utmost that
can be expected from virtual Representation is that it may be as good
as direct Representation. If so, why not grant direct Representation to
places which, as everybody allows, ought, by some process or other, to
be represented?
If it be said that there is an evil in change as change, I answer that
there is also an evil in discontent as discontent. This, indeed, is the
strongest part of our case. It is said that the system works well. I
deny it. I deny that a system works well, which the people regard
with aversion. We may say here, that it is a good system and a perfect
system. But if any man were to say so to any six hundred and fifty-eight
respectable farmers or shopkeepers, chosen by lot in any part of
England, he would be hooted down, and laughed to scorn. Are these the
feelings with which any part of the government ought to be regarded?
Above all, are these the feelings with which the popular branch of
the legislature ought to be regarded? It is almost as essential to the
utility of a House of Commons, that it should possess the confidence of
the people, as that it should deserve that confidence. Unfortunately,
that which is in theory the popular part of our government, is in
practice the unpopular part. Who wishes to dethrone the King? Who wishes
to turn the Lords out of their House? Here and there a crazy radical,
whom the boys in the street point at as he walks along. Who wishes to
alter the constitution of this House? The whole people. It is natural
that it should be so. The House of Commons is, in the language of Mr
Burke, a check, not on the people, but for the people. While that check
is efficient, there is no reason to fear that the King or the nobles
will oppress the people. But if the check requires checking, how is it
to be checked? If the salt shall lose its savour, wherewith shall we
season it? The distrust with which the nation regards this House may
be unjust. But what then? Can you remove that distrust? That it exists
cannot be denied. That it is an evil cannot be denied. That it is an
increasing evil cannot be denied. One gentleman tells us that it has
been produced by the late events in France and Belgium; another, that
it is the effect of seditious works which have lately been published.
If this feeling be of origin so recent, I have read history to little
purpose. Sir, this alarming discontent is not the growth of a day or of
a year. If there be any symptoms by which it is possible to distinguish
the chronic diseases of the body politic from its passing inflammations,
all those symptoms exist in the present case. The taint has been
gradually becoming more extensive and more malignant, through the whole
lifetime of two generations. We have tried anodynes. We have tried cruel
operations. What are we to try now? Who flatters himself that he can
turn this feeling back? Does there remain any argument which escaped the
comprehensive intellect of Mr Burke, or the subtlety of Mr Windham? Does
there remain any species of coercion which was not tried by Mr Pitt and
by Lord Londonderry? We have had laws. We have had blood. New treasons
have been created. The Press has been shackled. The Habeas Corpus Act
has been suspended. Public meetings have been prohibited. The event has
proved that these expedients were mere palliatives. You are at the end
of your palliatives. The evil remains. It is more formidable than ever.
What is to be done?
Under such circumstances, a great plan of reconciliation, prepared by
the Ministers of the Crown, has been brought before us in a manner which
gives additional lustre to a noble name, inseparably associated during
two centuries with the dearest liberties of the English people. I will
not say, that this plan is in all its details precisely such as I might
wish it to be; but it is founded on a great and a sound principle. It
takes away a vast power from a few. It distributes that power through
the great mass of the middle order. Every man, therefore, who thinks as
I think is bound to stand firmly by Ministers who are resolved to
stand or fall with this measure. Were I one of them, I would sooner,
infinitely sooner, fall with such a measure than stand by any other
means that ever supported a Cabinet.
My honourable friend, the Member for the University of Oxford, tells us,
that if we pass this law, England will soon be a republic. The reformed
House of Commons will, according to him, before it has sate ten years,
depose the King, and expel the Lords from their House. Sir, if my
honourable friend could prove this, he would have succeeded in bringing
an argument for democracy, infinitely stronger than any that is to be
found in the works of Paine. My honourable friend's proposition is in
fact this: that our monarchical and aristocratical institutions have no
hold on the public mind of England; that these institutions are regarded
with aversion by a decided majority of the middle class. This, Sir, I
say, is plainly deducible from his proposition; for he tells us that the
Representatives of the middle class will inevitably abolish royalty and
nobility within ten years: and there is surely no reason to think that
the Representatives of the middle class will be more inclined to a
democratic revolution than their constituents. Now, Sir, if I were
convinced that the great body of the middle class in England look with
aversion on monarchy and aristocracy, I should be forced, much against
my will, to come to this conclusion, that monarchical and aristocratical
institutions are unsuited to my country. Monarchy and aristocracy,
valuable and useful as I think them, are still valuable and useful as
means, and not as ends. The end of government is the happiness of
the people: and I do not conceive that, in a country like this, the
happiness of the people can be promoted by a form of government in which
the middle classes place no confidence, and which exists only because
the middle classes have no organ by which to make their sentiments
known. But, Sir, I am fully convinced that the middle classes sincerely
wish to uphold the Royal prerogatives and the constitutional rights of
the Peers. What facts does my honourable friend produce in support of
his opinion? One fact only; and that a fact which has absolutely nothing
to do with the question. The effect of this Reform, he tells us, would
be to make the House of Commons allpowerful. It was allpowerful once
before, in the beginning of 1649. Then it cut off the head of the King,
and abolished the House of Peers. Therefore, if it again has the supreme
power, it will act in the same manner. Now, Sir, it was not the House of
Commons that cut off the head of Charles the First; nor was the House
of Commons then allpowerful. It had been greatly reduced in numbers by
successive expulsions. It was under the absolute dominion of the army. A
majority of the House was willing to take the terms offered by the King.
The soldiers turned out the majority; and the minority, not a sixth part
of the whole House, passed those votes of which my honourable friend
speaks, votes of which the middle classes disapproved then, and of which
they disapprove still.
My honourable friend, and almost all the gentlemen who have taken the
same side with him in this Debate, have dwelt much on the utility of
close and rotten boroughs. It is by means of such boroughs, they tell
us, that the ablest men have been introduced into Parliament. It is
true that many distinguished persons have represented places of this
description. But, Sir, we must judge of a form of government by its
general tendency, not by happy accidents. Every form of government has
its happy accidents. Despotism has its happy accidents. Yet we are not
disposed to abolish all constitutional checks, to place an absolute
master over us, and to take our chance whether he may be a Caligula or
a Marcus Aurelius. In whatever way the House of Commons may be chosen,
some able men will be chosen in that way who would not be chosen in any
other way. If there were a law that the hundred tallest men in England
should be Members of Parliament, there would probably be some able men
among those who would come into the House by virtue of this law. If the
hundred persons whose names stand first in the alphabetical list of the
Court Guide were made Members of Parliament, there would probably be
able men among them. We read in ancient history, that a very able king
was elected by the neighing of his horse; but we shall scarcely, I
think, adopt this mode of election. In one of the most celebrated
republics of antiquity, Athens, Senators and Magistrates were chosen by
lot; and sometimes the lot fell fortunately. Once, for example, Socrates
was in office. A cruel and unjust proposition was made by a demagogue.
Socrates resisted it at the hazard of his own life. There is no event in
Grecian history more interesting than that memorable resistance. Yet who
would have officers appointed by lot, because the accident of the lot
may have given to a great and good man a power which he would probably
never have attained in any other way? We must judge, as I said, by
the general tendency of a system. No person can doubt that a House of
Commons chosen freely by the middle classes, will contain many very able
men. I do not say, that precisely the same able men who would find
their way into the present House of Commons will find their way into
the reformed House: but that is not the question. No particular man
is necessary to the State. We may depend on it that, if we provide the
country with popular institutions, those institutions will provide it
with great men.
There is another objection, which, I think, was first raised by the
honourable and learned Member for Newport. (Mr Horace Twiss.) He tells
us that the elective franchise is property; that to take it away from
a man who has not been judicially convicted of malpractices is robbery;
that no crime is proved against the voters in the close boroughs; that
no crime is even imputed to them in the preamble of the bill; and that
therefore to disfranchise them without compensation would be an act of
revolutionary tyranny. The honourable and learned gentleman has compared
the conduct of the present Ministers to that of those odious tools of
power, who, towards the close of the reign of Charles the Second, seized
the charters of the Whig corporations. Now, there was another precedent,
which I wonder that he did not recollect, both because it is much more
nearly in point than that to which he referred, and because my noble
friend, the Paymaster of the Forces, had previously alluded to it. If
the elective franchise is property, if to disfranchise voters without a
crime proved, or a compensation given, be robbery, was there ever such
an act of robbery as the disfranchising of the Irish forty-shilling
freeholders? Was any pecuniary compensation given to them? Is it
declared in the preamble of the bill which took away their franchise,
that they had been convicted of any offence? Was any judicial inquiry
instituted into their conduct? Were they even accused of any crime? Or
if you say that it was a crime in the electors of Clare to vote for
the honourable and learned gentleman who now represents the county of
Waterford, was a Protestant freeholder in Louth to be punished for
the crime of a Catholic freeholder in Clare? If the principle of the
honourable and learned Member for Newport be sound, the franchise of the
Irish peasant was property. That franchise the Ministers under whom the
honourable and learned Member held office did not scruple to take away.
Will he accuse those Ministers of robbery? If not, how can he bring such
an accusation against their successors?
Every gentleman, I think, who has spoken from the other side of the
House, has alluded to the opinions which some of His Majesty's Ministers
formerly entertained on the subject of Reform. It would be officious in
me, Sir, to undertake the defence of gentlemen who are so well able to
defend themselves. I will only say that, in my opinion, the country will
not think worse either of their capacity or of their patriotism, because
they have shown that they can profit by experience, because they have
learned to see the folly of delaying inevitable changes. There are
others who ought to have learned the same lesson. I say, Sir, that there
are those who, I should have thought, must have had enough to last them
all their lives of that humiliation which follows obstinate and boastful
resistance to changes rendered necessary by the progress of society, and
by the development of the human mind. Is it possible that those persons
can wish again to occupy a position which can neither be defended nor
surrendered with honour? I well remember, Sir, a certain evening in the
month of May, 1827. I had not then the honour of a seat in this House;
but I was an attentive observer of its proceedings. The right honourable
Baronet opposite (Sir Robert Peel), of whom personally I desire to speak
with that high respect which I feel for his talents and his character,
but of whose public conduct I must speak with the sincerity required
by my public duty, was then, as he is now, out of office. He had just
resigned the seals of the Home Department, because he conceived that the
recent ministerial arrangements had been too favourable to the Catholic
claims. He rose to ask whether it was the intention of the new Cabinet
to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts, and to reform the Parliament.
He bound up, I well remember, those two questions together; and he
declared that, if the Ministers should either attempt to repeal the
Test and Corporation Acts, or bring forward a measure of Parliamentary
Reform, he should think it his duty to oppose them to the utmost. Since
that declaration was made four years have elapsed; and what is now the
state of the three questions which then chiefly agitated the minds of
men? What is become of the Test and Corporation Acts? They are repealed.
By whom? By the right honourable Baronet. What has become of the
Catholic disabilities? They are removed. By whom? By the right
honourable Baronet. The question of Parliamentary Reform is still
behind. But signs, of which it is impossible to misconceive the import,
do most clearly indicate that unless that question also be speedily
settled, property, and order, and all the institutions of this great
monarchy, will be exposed to fearful peril. Is it possible that
gentlemen long versed in high political affairs cannot read these signs?
Is it possible that they can really believe that the Representative
system of England, such as it now is, will last to the year 1860? If
not, for what would they have us wait? Would they have us wait merely
that we may show to all the world how little we have profited by our own
recent experience?--Would they have us wait, that we may once again hit
the exact point where we can neither refuse with authority, nor
concede with grace? Would they have us wait, that the numbers of the
discontented party may become larger, its demands higher, its feelings
more acrimonious, its organisation more complete? Would they have us
wait till the whole tragicomedy of 1827 has been acted over again?
till they have been brought into office by a cry of 'No Reform,' to be
reformers, as they were once before brought into office by a cry of
'No Popery,' to be emancipators? Have they obliterated from their
minds--gladly, perhaps, would some among them obliterate from their
minds--the transactions of that year? And have they forgotten all the
transactions of the succeeding year? Have they forgotten how the spirit
of liberty in Ireland, debarred from its natural outlet, found a vent
by forbidden passages? Have they forgotten how we were forced to indulge
the Catholics in all the license of rebels, merely because we chose
to withhold from them the liberties of subjects? Do they wait for
associations more formidable than that of the Corn Exchange, for
contributions larger than the Rent, for agitators more violent than
those who, three years ago, divided with the King and the Parliament
the sovereignty of Ireland? Do they wait for that last and most dreadful
paroxysm of popular rage, for that last and most cruel test of military
fidelity? Let them wait, if their past experience shall induce them to
think that any high honour or any exquisite pleasure is to be obtained
by a policy like this. Let them wait, if this strange and fearful
infatuation be indeed upon them, that they should not see with their
eyes, or hear with their ears, or understand with their heart. But let
us know our interest and our duty better. Turn where we may, within,
around, the voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, that
you may preserve. Now, therefore, while everything at home and abroad
forebodes ruin to those who persist in a hopeless struggle against the
spirit of the age, now, while the crash of the proudest throne of the
Continent is still resounding in our ears, now, while the roof of a
British palace affords an ignominious shelter to the exiled heir of
forty kings, now, while we see on every side ancient institutions
subverted, and great societies dissolved, now, while the heart of
England is still sound, now, while old feelings and old associations
retain a power and a charm which may too soon pass away, now, in this
your accepted time, now, in this your day of salvation, take counsel,
not of prejudice, not of party spirit, not of the ignominious pride of
a fatal consistency, but of history, of reason, of the ages which are
past, of the signs of this most portentous time. Pronounce in a
manner worthy of the expectation with which this great debate has been
anticipated, and of the long remembrance which it will leave behind.
Renew the youth of the State. Save property, divided against itself.
Save the multitude, endangered by its own unpopular power. Save the
greatest, and fairest, and most highly civilised community that ever
existed, from calamities which may in a few days sweep away all the rich
heritage of so many ages of wisdom and glory. The danger is terrible.
The time is short. If this bill should be rejected, I pray to God that
none of those who concur in rejecting it may ever remember their votes
with unavailing remorse, amidst the wreck of laws, the confusion of
ranks, the spoliation of property, and the dissolution of social order.
*****
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. (JULY 5, 1831) A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF
COMMONS ON THE 5TH OF JULY 1831.
On Tuesday, the fourth of July, 1831, Lord John Russell moved the second
reading of the Bill to amend the representation of the people in England
and Wales. Sir John Walsh, member for Sudbury, moved, as an amendment,
that the bill should be read that day six months. After a discussion,
which lasted three nights, the amendment was rejected by 367 votes to
231, and the original motion was carried. The following Speech was made
on the second night of the debate.
Nobody, Sir, who has watched the course of the debate can have failed to
observe that the gentlemen who oppose this bill have chiefly relied on
a preliminary objection, which it is necessary to clear away before we
proceed to examine whether the proposed changes in our representative
system would or would not be improvements. The elective franchise,
we are told, is private property. It belongs to this freeman, to that
potwalloper, to the owner of this house, to the owner of that old wall;
and you have no more right to take it away without compensation than to
confiscate the dividends of a fundholder or the rents of a landholder.
Now, Sir, I admit that, if this objection be well founded, it is
decisive against the plan of Reform which has been submitted to us. If
the franchise be really private property, we have no more right to take
members away from Gatton because Gatton is small, and to give them to
Manchester because Manchester is large, than Cyrus, in the old story,
had to take away the big coat from the little boy and to put it on the
big boy. In no case, and under no pretext however specious, would I take
away from any member of the community anything which is of the nature
of property, without giving him full compensation. But I deny that the
elective franchise is of the nature of property; and I believe that, on
this point, I have with me all reason, all precedent, and all authority.
This at least is certain, that, if disfranchisement really be robbery,
the representative system which now exists is founded on robbery. How
was the franchise in the English counties fixed? By the act of Henry
the Sixth, which disfranchised tens of thousands of electors who had not
forty shilling freeholds. Was that robbery? How was the franchise in
the Irish counties fixed? By the act of George the Fourth, which
disfranchised tens of thousands of electors who had not ten pound
freeholds. Was that robbery? Or was the great parliamentary reform made
by Oliver Cromwell ever designated as robbery, even by those who most
abhorred his name? Everybody knows that the unsparing manner in which he
disfranchised small boroughs was emulously applauded, by royalists, who
hated him for having pulled down one dynasty, and by republicans, who
hated him for having founded another. Take Sir Harry Vane and Lord
Clarendon, both wise men, both, I believe, in the main, honest men, but
as much opposed to each other in politics as wise and honest men
could be. Both detested Oliver; yet both approved of Oliver's plan of
parliamentary reform. They grieved only that so salutary a change should
have been made by an usurper. Vane wished it to have been made by the
Rump; Clarendon wished it to be made by the King. Clarendon's language
on this subject is most remarkable. For he was no rash innovator.
The bias of his mind was altogether on the side of antiquity and
prescription. Yet he describes that great disfranchisement of boroughs
as an improvement fit to be made in a more warrantable method and at a
better time. This is that better time. What Cromwell attempted to effect
by an usurped authority, in a country which had lately been convulsed
by civil war, and which was with difficulty kept in a state of sullen
tranquillity by military force, it has fallen to our lot to accomplish
in profound peace, and under the rule of a prince whose title is
unquestioned, whose office is reverenced, and whose person is beloved.
It is easy to conceive with what scorn and astonishment Clarendon would
have heard it said that the reform which seemed to him so obviously just
and reasonable that he praised it, even when made by a regicide, could
not, without the grossest iniquity, be made even by a lawful King and a
lawful Parliament.
Sir, in the name of the institution of property, of that great
institution, for the sake of which, chiefly, all other institutions
exist, of that great institution to which we owe all knowledge, all
commerce, all industry, all civilisation, all that makes us to differ
from the tattooed savages of the Pacific Ocean, I protest against the
pernicious practice of ascribing to that which is not property the
sanctity which belongs to property alone. If, in order to save political
abuses from that fate with which they are threatened by the public
hatred, you claim for them the immunities of property, you must expect
that property will be regarded with some portion of the hatred which is
excited by political abuses. You bind up two very different things, in
the hope that they may stand together. Take heed that they do not fall
together. You tell the people that it is as unjust to disfranchise a
great lord's nomination borough as to confiscate his estate. Take heed
that you do not succeed in convincing weak and ignorant minds that there
is no more injustice in confiscating his estate than in disfranchising
his borough. That this is no imaginary danger, your own speeches in this
debate abundantly prove. You begin by ascribing to the franchises of Old
Sarum the sacredness of property; and you end, naturally enough, I
must own, by treating the rights of property as lightly as I should be
inclined to treat the franchises of Old Sarum. When you are reminded
that you voted, only two years ago, for disfranchising great numbers of
freeholders in Ireland, and when you are asked how, on the principles
which you now profess, you can justify that vote, you answer very
coolly, "no doubt that was confiscation. No doubt we took away from the
peasants of Munster and Connaught, without giving them a farthing of
compensation, that which was as much their property as their pigs or
their frieze coats. But we did it for the public good. We were pressed
by a great State necessity." Sir, if that be an answer, we too may plead
that we too have the public good in view, and that we are pressed by a
great State necessity. But I shall resort to no such plea. It fills me
with indignation and alarm to hear grave men avow what they own to be
downright robbery, and justify that robbery on the ground of political
convenience. No, Sir, there is one way, and only one way, in which those
gentlemen who voted for the disfranchising Act of 1829 can clear their
fame. Either they have no defence, or their defence must be this;
that the elective franchise is not of the nature of property, and that
therefore disfranchisement is not spoliation.
Having disposed, as I think, of the question of right, I come to the
question of expediency. I listened, Sir, with much interest and pleasure
to a noble Lord who spoke for the first time in this debate. (Lord
Porchester.) But I must own that he did not succeed in convincing me
that there is any real ground for the fears by which he is tormented.
He gave us a history of France since the Restoration. He told us of the
violent ebbs and flows of public feeling in that country. He told us
that the revolutionary party was fast rising to ascendency while M. De
Cazes was minister; that then came a violent reaction in favour of the
monarchy and the priesthood; that then the revolutionary party again
became dominant; that there had been a change of dynasty; and that the
Chamber of Peers had ceased to be a hereditary body. He then predicted,
if I understood him rightly, that, if we pass this bill, we shall
suffer all that France has suffered; that we shall have violent contests
between extreme parties, a revolution, and an abolition of the House of
Lords. I might, perhaps, dispute the accuracy of some parts of the noble
Lord's narrative. But I deny that his narrative, accurate or inaccurate,
is relevant. I deny that there is any analogy between the state of
France and the state of England. I deny that there is here any
great party which answers either to the revolutionary or to the
counter-revolutionary party in France. I most emphatically deny that
there is any resemblance in the character, and that there is likely to
be any resemblance in the fate, of the two Houses of Peers. I always
regarded the hereditary Chamber established by Louis the Eighteenth
as an institution which could not last. It was not in harmony with the
state of property; it was not in harmony with the public feeling; it
had neither the strength which is derived from wealth, nor the strength
which is derived from prescription. It was despised as plebeian by
the ancient nobility. It was hated as patrician by the democrats. It
belonged neither to the old France nor to the new France. It was a mere
exotic transplanted from our island. Here it had struck its roots deep,
and having stood during ages, was still green and vigorous. But it
languished in the foreign soil and the foreign air, and was blown
down by the first storm. It will be no such easy task to uproot the
aristocracy of England.
With much more force, at least with much more plausibility, the noble
Lord and several other members on the other side of the House have
argued against the proposed Reform on the ground that the existing
system has worked well. How great a country, they say, is ours! How
eminent in wealth and knowledge, in arts and arms! How much admired! How
much envied! Is it possible to believe that we have become what we are
under a bad government! And, if we have a good government, why alter
it? Now, Sir, I am very far from denying that England is great, and
prosperous, and highly civilised. I am equally far from denying that she
owes much of her greatness, of her prosperity, and of her civilisation
to her form of government. But is no nation ever to reform its
institutions because it has made great progress under those
institutions? Why, Sir, the progress is the very thing which makes the
reform absolutely necessary. The Czar Peter, we all know, did much for
Russia. But for his rude genius and energy, that country might have
still been utterly barbarous. Yet would it be reasonable to say that
the Russian people ought always, to the end of time, to be despotically
governed, because the Czar Peter was a despot? Let us remember that the
government and the society act and react on each other. Sometimes
the government is in advance of the society, and hurries the society
forward. So urged, the society gains on the government, comes up with
the government, outstrips the government, and begins to insist that the
government shall make more speed. If the government is wise, it will
yield to that just and natural demand. The great cause of revolutions
is this, that while nations move onward, constitutions stand still. The
peculiar happiness of England is that here, through many generations,
the constitution has moved onward with the nation. Gentlemen have told
us, that the most illustrious foreigners have, in every age, spoken
with admiration of the English constitution. Comines, they say, in the
fifteenth century, extolled the English constitution as the best in the
world. Montesquieu, in the eighteenth century, extolled it as the best
in the world. And would it not be madness in us to throw away what
such men thought the most precious of all our blessings? But was the
constitution which Montesquieu praised the same with the constitution
which Comines praised? No, Sir; if it had been so, Montesquieu never
would have praised it. For how was it possible that a polity which
exactly suited the subjects of Edward the Fourth should have exactly
suited the subjects of George the Second? The English have, it is true,
long been a great and a happy people. But they have been great and happy
because their history has been the history of a succession of timely
reforms. The Great Charter, the assembling of the first House of
Commons, the Petition of Right, the Declaration of Right, the Bill which
is now on our table, what are they all but steps in one great progress?
To every one of those steps the same objections might have been made
which we heard to-night, "You are better off than your neighbours are.
You are better off than your fathers were. Why can you not leave well
alone?"
How copiously might a Jacobite orator have harangued on this topic
in the Convention of 1688! "Why make a change of dynasty? Why trouble
ourselves to devise new securities for our laws and liberties? See what
a nation we are. See how population and wealth have increased since what
you call the good old times of Queen Elizabeth. You cannot deny that the
country has been more prosperous under the kings of the House of Stuart
than under any of their predecessors. Keep that House, then, and be
thankful." Just such is the reasoning of the opponents of this
bill. They tell us that we are an ungrateful people, and that, under
institutions from which we have derived inestimable benefits, we are
more discontented than the slaves of the Dey of Tripoli. Sir, if we had
been slaves of the Dey of Tripoli, we should have been too much sunk
in intellectual and moral degradation to be capable of the rational and
manly discontent of freemen. It is precisely because our institutions
are so good that we are not perfectly contended with them; for they have
educated us into a capacity for enjoying still better institutions. That
the English Government has generally been in advance of almost all other
governments is true. But it is equally true that the English nation is,
and has during some time been, in advance of the English Government. One
plain proof of this is, that nothing is so ill made in our island as
the laws. In all those things which depend on the intelligence, the
knowledge, the industry, the energy of individuals, or of voluntary
combinations of individuals, this country stands pre-eminent among all
the countries of the world, ancient and modern. But in those things
which it belongs to the State to direct, we have no such claim to
superiority. Our fields are cultivated with a skill unknown elsewhere,
with a skill which has extorted rich harvests from moors and morasses.
Our houses are filled with conveniences which the kings of former times
might have envied. Our bridges, our canals, our roads, our modes of
communication, fill every stranger with wonder. Nowhere are manufactures
carried to such perfection. Nowhere is so vast a mass of mechanical
power collected. Nowhere does man exercise such a dominion over matter.
These are the works of the nation. Compare them with the works of the
rulers of the nation. Look at the criminal law, at the civil law, at the
modes of conveying lands, at the modes of conducting actions. It is by
these things that we must judge of our legislators, just as we judge
of our manufacturers by the cotton goods and the cutlery which they
produce, just as we judge of our engineers by the suspension bridges,
the tunnels, the steam carriages which they construct. Is, then,
the machinery by which justice is administered framed with the same
exquisite skill which is found in other kinds of machinery? Can there
be a stronger contrast than that which exists between the beauty, the
completeness, the speed, the precision with which every process is
performed in our factories, and the awkwardness, the rudeness, the
slowness, the uncertainty of the apparatus by which offences are
punished and rights vindicated? Look at the series of penal statutes,
the most bloody and the most inefficient in the world, at the puerile
fictions which make every declaration and every plea unintelligible both
to plaintiff and defendant, at the mummery of fines and recoveries, at
the chaos of precedents, at the bottomless pit of Chancery. Surely we
see the barbarism of the thirteenth century and the highest civilisation
of the nineteenth century side by side; and we see that the barbarism
belongs to the government, and the civilisation to the people.
This is a state of things which cannot last. If it be not terminated by
wisdom, it will be terminated by violence. A time has come at which it
is not merely desirable, but indispensable to the public safety, that
the government should be brought into harmony with the people; and it
is because this bill seems to me likely to bring the government into
harmony with the people, that I feel it to be my duty to give my hearty
support to His Majesty's Ministers.
We have been told, indeed, that this is not the plan of Reform which the
nation asked for. Be it so. But you cannot deny that it is the plan of
Reform which the nation has accepted. That, though differing in many
respects from what was asked, it has been accepted with transports
of joy and gratitude, is a decisive proof of the wisdom of timely
concession. Never in the history of the world was there so signal an
example of that true statesmanship, which, at once animating and gently
curbing the honest enthusiasm of millions, guides it safely and steadily
to a happy goal. It is not strange, that when men are refused what is
reasonable, they should demand what is unreasonable. It is not strange
that, when they find that their opinion is contemned and neglected by
the Legislature, they should lend a too favourable ear to worthless
agitators. We have seen how discontent may be produced. We have seen,
too, how it may be appeased. We have seen that the true source of the
power of demagogues is the obstinacy of rulers, and that a liberal
Government makes a conservative people. Early in the last session, the
First Minister of the Crown declared that he would consent to no
Reform; that he thought our representative system, just as it stood, the
masterpiece of human wisdom; that, if he had to make it anew, he would
make it such as it was, with all its represented ruins and all its
unrepresented cities. What followed? Everything was tumult and panic.
The funds fell. The streets were insecure. Men's hearts failed them for
fear. We began to move our property into German investments and American
investments. Such was the state of the public mind, that it was not
thought safe to let the Sovereign pass from his palace to the Guildhall
of his capital. What part of his kingdom is there in which His Majesty
now needs any other guard than the affection of his loving subjects?
There are, indeed, still malecontents; and they may be divided into two
classes, the friends of corruption and the sowers of sedition. It is
natural that all who directly profit by abuses, and all who profit by
the disaffection which abuses excite, should be leagued together against
a bill which, by making the government pure, will make the nation loyal.
There is, and always has been, a real alliance between the two extreme
parties in this country. They play into each other's hands. They live
by each other. Neither would have any influence if the other were taken
away. The demagogue would have no audience but for the indignation
excited among the multitude by the insolence of the enemies of Reform:
and the last hope of the enemies of Reform is in the uneasiness excited
among all who have anything to lose by the ravings of the demagogue.
I see, and glad I am to see, that the nation perfectly understands and
justly appreciates this coalition between those who hate all liberty and
those who hate all order. England has spoken, and spoken out. From her
most opulent seaports, from her manufacturing towns, from her capital
and its gigantic suburbs, from almost every one of her counties, has
gone forth a voice, answering in no doubtful or faltering accent to that
truly royal voice which appealed on the twenty-second of last April to
the sense of the nation.
So clearly, indeed, has the sense of the nation been expressed, that
scarcely any person now ventures to declare himself hostile to all
Reform. We are, it seems, a House of Reformers. Those very gentlemen
who, a few months ago, were vehement against all change, now own that
some change may be proper, may be necessary. They assure us that their
opposition is directed, not against Parliamentary Reform, but against
the particular plan which is now before us, and that a Tory Ministry
would devise a much better plan. I cannot but think that these tactics
are unskilful. I cannot but think that, when our opponents defended the
existing system in every part, they occupied a stronger position than
at present. As my noble friend the Paymaster-General said, they have
committed an error resembling that of the Scotch army at Dunbar. They
have left the high ground from which we might have had some difficulty
in dislodging them. They have come down to low ground, where they are at
our mercy. Surely, as Cromwell said, surely the Lord hath delivered them
into our hand.
For, Sir, it is impossible not to perceive that almost every argument
which they have urged against this Reform Bill may be urged with equal
force, or with greater force, against any Reform Bill which they can
themselves bring in.
First take, what, indeed, are not arguments, but wretched substitutes
for arguments, those vague terms of reproach, which have been so
largely employed, here and elsewhere, by our opponents; revolutionary,
anarchical, traitorous, and so forth. It will, I apprehend, hardly be
disputed that these epithets can be just as easily applied to one Reform
Bill as to another.
But, you say, intimidation has been used to promote the passing of this
bill; and it would be disgraceful, and of evil example, that Parliament
should yield to intimidation. But surely, if that argument be of any
force against the present bill, it will be of tenfold force against any
Reform Bill proposed by you. For this bill is the work of men who are
Reformers from conscientious conviction, of men, some of whom were
Reformers when Reformer was a name of reproach, of men, all of whom were
Reformers before the nation had begun to demand Reform in imperative and
menacing tones. But you are notoriously Reformers merely from fear. You
are Reformers under duress. If a concession is to be made to the public
importunity, you can hardly deny that it will be made with more grace
and dignity by Lord Grey than by you.
Then you complain of the anomalies of the bill. One county, you say,
will have twelve members; and another county, which is larger and more
populous, will have only ten. Some towns, which are to have only one
member, are more considerable than other towns which are to have two. Do
those who make these objections, objections which by the by will be more
in place when the bill is in committee, seriously mean to say that a
Tory Reform Bill will leave no anomalies in the representative system?
For my own part, I trouble myself not at all about anomalies, considered
merely as anomalies. I would not take the trouble of lifting up my hand
to get rid of an anomaly that was not also a grievance. But if gentlemen
have such a horror of anomalies, it is strange that they should so long
have persisted in upholding a system made up of anomalies far greater
than any that can be found in this bill (a cry of "No!"). Yes; far
greater. Answer me, if you can; but do not interrupt me. On this point,
indeed, it is much easier to interrupt than to answer. For who can
answer plain arithmetical demonstration? Under the present system,
Manchester, with two hundred thousand inhabitants, has no members. Old
Sarum, with no inhabitants, has two members. Find me such an anomaly in
the schedules which are now on the table. But is it possible that you,
that Tories, can seriously mean to adopt the only plan which can remove
all anomalies from the representative system? Are you prepared to
have, after every decennial census, a new distribution of members
among electoral districts? Is your plan of Reform that which Mr Canning
satirised as the most crazy of all the projects of the disciples of Tom
Paine? Do you really mean
"That each fair burgh, numerically free,
Shall choose its members by the rule of three?"
If not, let us hear no more of the anomalies of the Reform Bill.
But your great objection to this bill is that it will not be final. I
ask you whether you think that any Reform Bill which you can frame will
be final? For my part I do believe that the settlement proposed by His
Majesty's Ministers will be final, in the only sense in which a wise man
ever uses that word. I believe that it will last during that time
for which alone we ought at present to think of legislating. Another
generation may find in the new representative system defects such as we
find in the old representative system. Civilisation will proceed. Wealth
will increase. Industry and trade will find out new seats. The same
causes which have turned so many villages into great towns, which
have turned so many thousands of square miles of fir and heath into
cornfields and orchards, will continue to operate. Who can say that a
hundred years hence there may not be, on the shore of some desolate
and silent bay in the Hebrides, another Liverpool, with its docks and
warehouses and endless forests of masts? Who can say that the huge
chimneys of another Manchester may not rise in the wilds of Connemara?
For our children we do not pretend to legislate. All that we can do
for them is to leave to them a memorable example of the manner in which
great reforms ought to be made. In the only sense, therefore, in which
a statesman ought to say that anything is final, I pronounce this bill
final. But in what sense will your bill be final? Suppose that you could
defeat the Ministers, that you could displace them, that you could
form a Government, that you could obtain a majority in this House,
what course would events take? There is no difficulty in foreseeing
the stages of the rapid progress downward. First we should have a mock
reform; a Bassietlaw reform; a reform worthy of those politicians who,
when a delinquent borough had forfeited its franchise, and when it was
necessary for them to determine what they would do with two seats
in Parliament, deliberately gave those seats, not to Manchester or
Birmingham or Leeds, not to Lancashire or Staffordshire or Devonshire,
but to a constituent body studiously selected because it was not large
and because it was not independent; a reform worthy of those politicians
who, only twelve months ago, refused to give members to the three
greatest manufacturing towns in the world. We should have a reform which
would produce all the evils and none of the benefits of change, which
would take away from the representative system the foundation of
prescription, and yet would not substitute the surer foundation of
reason and public good. The people would be at once emboldened and
exasperated; emboldened because they would see that they had frightened
the Tories into making a pretence of reforming the Parliament; and
exasperated because they would see that the Tory Reform was a mere
pretence. Then would come agitation, tumult, political associations,
libels, inflammatory harangues. Coercion would only aggravate the
evil. This is no age, this is no country, for the war of power against
opinion. Those Jacobin mountebanks, whom this bill would at once send
back to their native obscurity, would rise into fearful importance. The
law would be sometimes braved and sometimes evaded. In short, England
would soon be what Ireland was at the beginning of 1829. Then, at
length, as in 1829, would come the late and vain repentance. Then, Sir,
amidst the generous cheers of the Whigs, who will be again occupying
their old seats on your left hand, and amidst the indignant murmurs of
those stanch Tories who are now again trusting to be again betrayed, the
right honourable Baronet opposite will rise from the Treasury Bench to
propose that bill on which the hearts of the people are set. But will
that bill be then accepted with the delight and thankfulness with which
it was received last March? Remember Ireland. Remember how, in that
country, concessions too long delayed were at last received. That great
boon which in 1801, in 1813, in 1825, would have won the hearts of
millions, given too late, and given from fear, only produced new
clamours and new dangers. Is not one such lesson enough for one
generation? A noble Lord opposite told us not to expect that this bill
will have a conciliatory effect. Recollect, he said, how the French
aristocracy surrendered their privileges in 1789, and how that surrender
was requited. Recollect that Day of Sacrifices which was afterwards
called the Day of Dupes. Sir, that day was afterwards called the Day of
Dupes, not because it was the Day of Sacrifices, but because it was
the Day of Sacrifices too long deferred. It was because the French
aristocracy resisted reform in 1783, that they were unable to resist
revolution in 1789. It was because they clung too long to odious
exemptions and distinctions, that they were at last unable to serve
their lands, their mansions, their heads. They would not endure Turgot:
and they had to endure Robespierre.
I am far indeed from wishing that the Members of this House should be
influenced by fear in the bad and unworthy sense of that word. But
there is an honest and honourable fear, which well becomes those who are
intrusted with the dearest interests of a great community; and to that
fear I am not ashamed to make an earnest appeal. It is very well to talk
of confronting sedition boldly, and of enforcing the law against those
who would disturb the public peace. No doubt a tumult caused by local
and temporary irritation ought to be suppressed with promptitude and
vigour. Such disturbances, for example, as those which Lord George
Gordon raised in 1780, should be instantly put down with the strong
hand. But woe to the Government which cannot distinguish between a
nation and a mob! Woe to the Government which thinks that a great, a
steady, a long continued movement of the public mind is to be stopped
like a street riot! This error has been twice fatal to the great House
of Bourbon. God be praised, our rulers have been wiser. The golden
opportunity which, if once suffered to escape, might never have been
retrieved, has been seized. Nothing, I firmly believe, can now prevent
the passing of this noble law, this second Bill of Rights. ["Murmurs."]
Yes, I call it, and the nation calls it, and our posterity will long
call it, this second Bill of Rights, this Greater Charter of the
Liberties of England. The year 1831 will, I trust, exhibit the first
example of the manner in which it behoves a free and enlightened people
to purify their polity from old and deeply seated abuses, without
bloodshed, without violence, without rapine, all points freely debated,
all the forms of senatorial deliberation punctiliously observed,
industry and trade not for a moment interrupted, the authority of law
not for a moment suspended. These are things of which we may well be
proud. These are things which swell the heart up with a good hope for
the destinies of mankind. I cannot but anticipate a long series of
happy years; of years during which a parental Government will be firmly
supported by a grateful nation: of years during which war, if war should
be inevitable, will find us an united people; of years pre-eminently
distinguished by the progress of arts, by the improvement of laws,
by the augmentation of the public resources, by the diminution of the
public burdens, by all those victories of peace, in which, far more than
in any military successes, consists the true felicity of states, and the
true glory of statesmen. With such hopes, Sir, and such feelings, I give
my cordial assent to the second reading of a bill which I consider as
in itself deserving of the warmest approbation, and as indispensably
necessary, in the present temper of the public mind, to the repose of
the country and to the stability of the throne.
*****
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. (SEPTEMBER 20, 1831) A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE
HOUSE OF COMMONS ON THE 20TH OF SEPTEMBER 1831.
On Monday, the nineteenth of September, 1831, the Bill to amend the
representation of the people in England and Wales was read a third time,
at an early hour and in a thin house, without any debate. But on the
question whether the Bill should pass a discussion arose which lasted
three nights. On the morning of the twenty-second of September the House
divided; and the Bill passed by 345 votes to 236. The following Speech
was made on the second night of the debate.
It is not without great diffidence, Sir, that I rise to address you on a
subject which has been nearly exhausted. Indeed, I should not have risen
had I not thought that, though the arguments on this question are for
the most part old, our situation at present is in a great measure new.
At length the Reform Bill, having passed without vital injury
through all the dangers which threatened it, during a long and minute
discussion, from the attacks of its enemies and from the dissensions
of its friends, comes before us for our final ratification, altered,
indeed, in some of its details for the better, and in some for the
worse, but in its great principles still the same bill which, on the
first of March, was proposed to the late Parliament, the same bill which
was received with joy and gratitude by the whole nation, the same bill
which, in an instant, took away the power of interested agitators, and
united in one firm body all the sects of sincere Reformers, the same
bill which, at the late election, received the approbation of almost
every great constituent body in the empire. With a confidence which
discussion has only strengthened, with an assured hope of great public
blessings if the wish of the nation shall be gratified, with a deep and
solemn apprehension of great public calamities if that wish shall be
disappointed, I, for the last time, give my most hearty assent to this
noble law, destined, I trust, to be the parent of many good laws, and,
through a long series of years, to secure the repose and promote the
prosperity of my country.
When I say that I expect this bill to promote the prosperity of the
country, I by no means intend to encourage those chimerical hopes which
the honourable and learned Member for Rye (Mr Pemberton.), who has so
much distinguished himself in this debate, has imputed to the Reformers.
The people, he says, are for the bill, because they expect that it will
immediately relieve all their distresses. Sir, I believe that very few
of that large and respectable class which we are now about to admit to
a share of political power entertain any such absurd expectation. They
expect relief, I doubt not; and I doubt not that they will find it:
but sudden relief they are far too wise to expect. The bill, says the
honourable and learned gentleman, is good for nothing: it is merely
theoretical: it removes no real and sensible evil: it will not give the
people more work, or higher wages, or cheaper bread. Undoubtedly, Sir,
the bill will not immediately give all those things to the people.
But will any institutions give them all those things? Do the present
institutions of the country secure to them those advantages? If we are
to pronounce the Reform Bill good for nothing, because it will not at
once raise the nation from distress to prosperity, what are we to say
of that system under which the nation has been of late sinking from
prosperity into distress? The defect is not in the Reform Bill, but in
the very nature of government. On the physical condition of the great
body of the people, government acts not as a specific, but as an
alternative. Its operation is powerful, indeed, and certain, but gradual
and indirect. The business of government is not directly to make the
people rich; and a government which attempts more than this is precisely
the government which is likely to perform less. Governments do not and
cannot support the people. We have no miraculous powers: we have not the
rod of the Hebrew lawgiver: we cannot rain down bread on the multitude
from Heaven: we cannot smite the rock and give them to drink. We can
give them only freedom to employ their industry to the best advantage,
and security in the enjoyment of what their industry has acquired. These
advantages it is our duty to give at the smallest possible cost. The
diligence and forethought of individuals will thus have fair play; and
it is only by the diligence and forethought of individuals that the
community can become prosperous. I am not aware that His Majesty's
Ministers, or any of the supporters of this bill, have encouraged the
people to hope, that Reform will remove distress, in any other way than
by this indirect process. By this indirect process the bill will, I
feel assured, conduce to the national prosperity. If it had been
passed fifteen years ago, it would have saved us from our present
embarrassments. If we pass it now, it will gradually extricate us from
them. It will secure to us a House of Commons, which, by preserving
peace, by destroying monopolies, by taking away unnecessary public
burthens, by judiciously distributing necessary public burthens, will,
in the progress of time, greatly improve our condition. This it will do;
and those who blame it for not doing more blame it for not doing what
no Constitution, no code of laws, ever did or ever will do; what
no legislator, who was not an ignorant and unprincipled quack, ever
ventured to promise.
But chimerical as are the hopes which the honourable and learned Member
for Rye imputes to the people, they are not, I think, more chimerical
than the fears which he has himself avowed. Indeed, those very gentlemen
who are constantly telling us that we are taking a leap in the dark,
that we pay no attention to the lessons of experience, that we are mere
theorists, are themselves the despisers of experience, are themselves
the mere theorists. They are terrified at the thought of admitting into
Parliament members elected by ten pound householders. They have formed
in their own imaginations a most frightful idea of these members. My
honourable and learned friend, the Member for Cockermouth (Sir James
Scarlett.), is certain that these members will take every opportunity of
promoting the interests of the journeyman in opposition to those of the
capitalist. The honourable and learned Member for Rye is convinced
that none but persons who have strong local connections, will ever be
returned for such constituent bodies. My honourable friend, the Member
for Thetford (Mr Alexander Baring.), tells us, that none but mob
orators, men who are willing to pay the basest court to the multitude,
will have any chance. Other speakers have gone still further, and
have described to us the future borough members as so many Marats and
Santerres, low, fierce, desperate men, who will turn the House into a
bear-garden, and who will try to turn the monarchy into a republic, mere
agitators, without honour, without sense, without education, without the
feelings or the manners of gentlemen. Whenever, during the course of the
fatiguing discussions by which we have been so long occupied, there has
been a cry of "question," or a noise at the bar, the orator who has been
interrupted has remarked, that such proceedings will be quite in place
in the Reformed Parliament, but that we ought to remember that the House
of Commons is still an assembly of gentlemen. This, I say, is to set up
mere theory, or rather mere prejudice, in opposition to long and ample
experience. Are the gentlemen who talk thus ignorant that we have
already the means of judging what kind of men the ten pound householders
will send up to parliament? Are they ignorant that there are even now
large towns with very popular franchises, with franchises even more
democratic than those which will be bestowed by the present bill?
Ought they not, on their own principles, to look at the results of
the experiments which have already been made, instead of predicting
frightful calamities at random? How do the facts which are before us
agree with their theories? Nottingham is a city with a franchise even
more democratic than that which this bill establishes. Does Nottingham
send hither mere vulgar demagogues? It returns two distinguished men,
one an advocate, the other a soldier, both unconnected with the town.
Every man paying scot and lot has a vote at Leicester. This is a lower
franchise than the ten pound franchise. Do we find that the Members
for Leicester are the mere tools of the journeymen? I was at Leicester
during the contest of 1826; and I recollect that the suffrages of the
scot and lot voters were pretty equally divided between two candidates,
neither of them connected with the place, neither of them a slave of the
mob, one a Tory Baronet from Derbyshire, the other a most respectable
and excellent friend of mine, connected with the manufacturing
interest, and also an inhabitant of Derbyshire. Look at Norwich. Look at
Northampton, with a franchise more democratic than even the scot and lot
franchise. Northampton formerly returned Mr Perceval, and now returns
gentlemen of high respectability, gentlemen who have a great stake in
the prosperity and tranquillity of the country. Look at the metropolitan
districts. This is an a fortiori case. Nay it is--the expression, I
fear, is awkward--an a fortiori case at two removes. The ten pound
householders of the metropolis are persons in a lower station of
life than the ten pound householders of other towns. The scot and lot
franchise in the metropolis is again lower than the ten pound franchise.
Yet have Westminster and Southwark been in the habit of sending us
members of whom we have had reason to be ashamed, of whom we have not
had reason to be proud? I do not say that the inhabitants of Westminster
and Southwark have always expressed their political sentiments with
proper moderation. That is not the question. The question is this: what
kind of men have they elected? The very principle of all Representative
government is, that men who do not judge well of public affairs may be
quite competent to choose others who will judge better. Whom, then, have
Westminster and Southwark sent us during the last fifty years, years
full of great events, years of intense popular excitement? Take any one
of those nomination boroughs, the patrons of which have conscientiously
endeavoured to send fit men into this House. Compare the Members for
that borough with the Members for Westminster and Southwark; and you
will have no doubt to which the preference is due. It is needless to
mention Mr Fox, Mr Sheridan, Mr Tierney, Sir Samuel Romilly. Yet I must
pause at the name of Sir Samuel Romilly. Was he a mob orator? Was he a
servile flatterer of the multitude? Sir, if he had any fault, if
there was any blemish on that most serene and spotless character, that
character which every public man, and especially every professional
man engaged in politics, ought to propose to himself as a model, it
was this, that he despised popularity too much and too visibly. The
honourable Member for Thetford told us that the honourable and learned
Member for Rye, with all his talents, would have no chance of a seat in
the Reformed Parliament, for want of the qualifications which succeed
on the hustings. Did Sir Samuel Romilly ever appear on the hustings of
Westminster? He never solicited one vote; he never showed himself to the
electors, till he had been returned at the head of the poll. Even
then, as I have heard from one of his nearest relatives, it was with
reluctance that he submitted to be chaired. He shrank from being made
a show. He loved the people, and he served them; but Coriolanus himself
was not less fit to canvass them. I will mention one other name, that
of a man of whom I have only a childish recollection, but who must have
been intimately known to many of those who hear me, Mr Henry Thornton.
He was a man eminently upright, honourable, and religious, a man of
strong understanding, a man of great political knowledge; but, in all
respects, the very reverse of a mob orator. He was a man who would not
have yielded to what he considered as unreasonable clamour, I will
not say to save his seat, but to save his life. Yet he continued to
represent Southwark, Parliament after Parliament, for many years. Such
has been the conduct of the scot and lot voters of the metropolis; and
there is clearly less reason to expect democratic violence from ten
pound householders than from scot and lot householders; and from ten
pound householders in the country towns than from ten pound householders
in London. Experience, I say, therefore, is on our side; and on the side
of our opponents nothing but mere conjecture and mere assertion.
Sir, when this bill was first brought forward, I supported it, not
only on the ground of its intrinsic merits, but, also, because I was
convinced that to reject it would be a course full of danger. I believe
that the danger of that course is in no respect diminished. I believe,
on the contrary, that it is increased. We are told that there is a
reaction. The warmth of the public feeling, it seems, has abated. In
this story both the sections of the party opposed to Reform are agreed;
those who hate Reform, because it will remove abuses, and those who hate
it, because it will vert anarchy; those who wish to see the electing
body controlled by ejectments, and those who wish to see it controlled
by riots. They must now, I think, be undeceived. They must have already
discovered that the surest way to prevent a reaction is to talk about
it, and that the enthusiasm of the people is at once rekindled by any
indiscreet mention of their seeming coolness. This, Sir, is not the
first reaction which the sagacity of the Opposition has discovered since
the Reform Bill was brought in. Every gentleman who sat in the late
Parliament, every gentleman who, during the sitting of the late
Parliament, paid attention to political speeches and publications, must
remember how, for some time before the debate on General Gascoyne's
motion, and during the debate on that motion, and down to the very day
of the dissolution, we were told that public feeling had cooled. The
right honourable Baronet, the member for Tamworth, told us so. All the
literary organs of the Opposition, from the Quarterly Review down to the
Morning Post, told us so. All the Members of the Opposition with whom
we conversed in private told us so. I have in my eye a noble friend of
mine, who assured me, on the very night which preceded the dissolution,
that the people had ceased to be zealous for the Ministerial plan, and
that we were more likely to lose than to gain by the elections. The
appeal was made to the people; and what was the result? What sign of a
reaction appeared among the Livery of London? What sign of a reaction
did the honourable Baronet who now represents Okehampton find among the
freeholders of Cornwall? (Sir Richard Vyvyan.) How was it with the large
represented towns? Had Liverpool cooled? or Bristol? or Leicester? or
Coventry? or Nottingham? or Norwich? How was it with the great seats of
manufacturing industry, Yorkshire, and Lancashire, and Staffordshire,
and Warwickshire, and Cheshire? How was it with the agricultural
districts, Northumberland and Cumberland, Leicestershire and
Lincolnshire, Kent and Essex, Oxfordshire, Hampshire, Somersetshire,
Dorsetshire, Devonshire? How was it with the strongholds of
aristocratical influence, Newark, and Stamford, and Hertford, and St
Alban's? Never did any people display, within the limits prescribed by
law, so generous a fervour, or so steadfast a determination, as that
very people whose apparent languor had just before inspired the enemies
of Reform with a delusive hope.
Such was the end of the reaction of April; and, if that lesson shall not
profit those to whom it was given, such and yet more signal will be the
end of the reaction of September. The two cases are strictly analogous.
In both cases the people were eager when they believed the bill to be
in danger, and quiet when they believed it to be in security. During the
three or four weeks which followed the promulgation of the Ministerial
plan, all was joy, and gratitude, and vigorous exertion. Everywhere
meetings were held: everywhere resolutions were passed: from every
quarter were sent up petitions to this House, and addresses to the
Throne: and then the nation, having given vent to its first feelings of
delight, having clearly and strongly expressed its opinions, having seen
the principle of the bill adopted by the House of Commons on the second
reading, became composed, and awaited the result with a tranquillity
which the Opposition mistook for indifference. All at once the aspect of
affairs changed. General Gascoyne's amendment was carried: the bill was
again in danger: exertions were again necessary. Then was it well
seen whether the calmness of the public mind was any indication of
indifference. The depth and sincerity of the prevailing sentiments were
proved, not by mere talking, but by actions, by votes, by sacrifices.
Intimidation was defied: expenses were rejected: old ties were broken:
the people struggled manfully: they triumphed gloriously: they placed
the bill in perfect security, as far as this house was concerned; and
they returned to their repose. They are now, as they were on the eve of
General Gascoyne's motion, awaiting the issue of the deliberations of
Parliament, without any indecent show of violence, but with anxious
interest and immovable resolution. And because they are not exhibiting
that noisy and rapturous enthusiasm which is in its own nature
transient, because they are not as much excited as on the day when the
plan of the Government was first made known to them, or on the day when
the late Parliament was dissolved, because they do not go on week after
week, hallooing, and holding meetings, and marching about with flags,
and making bonfires, and illuminating their houses, we are again told
that there is a reaction. To such a degree can men be deceived by
their wishes, in spite of their own recent experience. Sir, there is no
reaction; and there will be no reaction. All that has been said on this
subject convinces me only that those who are now, for the second time,
raising this cry, know nothing of the crisis in which they are called on
to act, or of the nation which they aspire to govern. All their opinions
respecting this bill are founded on one great error. They imagine that
the public feeling concerning Reform is a mere whim which sprang up
suddenly out of nothing, and which will as suddenly vanish into nothing.
They, therefore, confidently expect a reaction. They are always looking
out for a reaction. Everything that they see, or that they hear, they
construe into a sign of the approach of this reaction. They resemble the
man in Horace, who lies on the bank of the river, expecting that it
will every moment pass by and leave him a clear passage, not knowing the
depth and abundance of the fountain which feeds it, not knowing that
it flows, and will flow on for ever. They have found out a hundred
ingenious devices by which they deceive themselves. Sometimes they tell
us that the public feeling about Reform was caused by the events which
took place at Paris about fourteen months ago; though every observant
and impartial man knows, that the excitement which the late French
revolution produced in England was not the cause but the effect of that
progress which liberal opinions had made amongst us. Sometimes they
tell us that we should not have been troubled with any complaints on the
subject of the Representation, if the House of Commons had agreed to a
certain motion, made in the session of 1830, for inquiry into the causes
of the public distress. I remember nothing about that motion, except
that it gave rise to the dullest debate ever known; and the country, I
am firmly convinced, cared not one straw about it. But is it not strange
that men of real ability can deceive themselves so grossly, as to think
that any change in the government of a foreign nation, or the rejection
of any single motion, however popular, could all at once raise up a
great, rich, enlightened nation, against its ancient institutions? Could
such small drops have produced an overflowing, if the vessel had not
already been filled to the very brim? These explanations are incredible,
and if they were credible, would be anything but consolatory. If it were
really true that the English people had taken a sudden aversion to a
representative system which they had always loved and admired, because a
single division in Parliament had gone against their wishes, or because,
in a foreign country, in circumstances bearing not the faintest analogy
to those in which we are placed, a change of dynasty had happened, what
hope could we have for such a nation of madmen? How could we expect
that the present form of government, or any form of government, would be
durable amongst them?
Sir, the public feeling concerning Reform is of no such recent origin,
and springs from no such frivolous causes. Its first faint commencement
may be traced far, very far, back in our history. During seventy years
that feeling has had a great influence on the public mind. Through the
first thirty years of the reign of George the Third, it was gradually
increasing. The great leaders of the two parties in the State were
favourable to Reform. Plans of reform were supported by large and most
respectable minorities in the House of Commons. The French Revolution,
filling the higher and middle classes with an extreme dread of change,
and the war calling away the public attention from internal to external
politics, threw the question back; but the people never lost sight
of it. Peace came, and they were at leisure to think of domestic
improvements. Distress came, and they suspected, as was natural, that
their distress was the effect of unfaithful stewardship and unskilful
legislation. An opinion favourable to Parliamentary Reform grew up
rapidly, and became strong among the middle classes. But one tie, one
strong tie, still bound those classes to the Tory party. I mean the
Catholic Question. It is impossible to deny that, on that subject, a
large proportion, a majority, I fear, of the middle class of Englishmen,
conscientiously held opinions opposed to those which I have always
entertained, and were disposed to sacrifice every other consideration to
what they regarded as a religious duty. Thus the Catholic Question hid,
so to speak, the question of Parliamentary Reform. The feeling in favour
of Parliamentary Reform grew, but it grew in the shade. Every man, I
think, must have observed the progress of that feeling in his own social
circle. But few Reform meetings were held, and few petitions in favour
of Reform presented. At length the Catholics were emancipated; the
solitary link of sympathy which attached the people to the Tories was
broken; the cry of "No Popery" could no longer be opposed to the cry
of "Reform." That which, in the opinion of the two great parties in
Parliament, and of a vast portion of the community, had been the first
question, suddenly disappeared; and the question of Parliamentary Reform
took the first place. Then was put forth all the strength which had been
growing in silence and obscurity. Then it appeared that Reform had on
its side a coalition of interests and opinions unprecedented in our
history, all the liberality and intelligence which had supported the
Catholic claims, and all the clamour which had opposed them.
This, I believe, is the true history of that public feeling on the
subject of Reform which had been ascribed to causes quite inadequate to
the production of such an effect. If ever there was in the history of
mankind a national sentiment which was the very opposite of a caprice,
with which accident had nothing to do, which was produced by the slow,
steady, certain progress of the human mind, it is the sentiment of the
English people on the subject of Reform. Accidental circumstances
may have brought that feeling to maturity in a particular year, or a
particular month. That point I will not dispute; for it is not worth
disputing. But those accidental circumstances have brought on Reform,
only as the circumstance that, at a particular time, indulgences were
offered for sale in a particular town in Saxony, brought on the great
separation from the Church of Rome. In both cases the public mind was
prepared to move on the slightest impulse.
Thinking thus of the public opinion concerning Reform, being convinced
that this opinion is the mature product of time and of discussion, I
expect no reaction. I no more expect to see my countrymen again content
with the mere semblance of a Representation, than to see them again
drowning witches or burning heretics, trying causes by red hot
ploughshares, or offering up human sacrifices to wicker idols. I no more
expect a reaction in favour of Gatton and Old Sarum, than a reaction in
favour of Thor and Odin. I should think such a reaction almost as much
a miracle as that the shadow should go back upon the dial. Revolutions
produced by violence are often followed by reactions; the victories of
reason once gained, are gained for eternity.
In fact, if there be, in the present aspect of public affairs, any sign
peculiarly full of evil omen to the opponents of Reform, it is that very
calmness of the public mind on which they found their expectation of
success. They think that it is the calmness of indifference. It is the
calmness of confident hope: and in proportion to the confidence of hope
will be the bitterness of disappointment. Disappointment, indeed, I
do not anticipate. That we are certain of success in this House is now
acknowledged; and our opponents have, in consequence, during the whole
of this Session, and particularly during the present debate, addressed
their arguments and exhortations rather to the Lords than to the
assembly of which they are themselves Members. Their principal argument
has always been, that the bill will destroy the peerage. The honourable
and learned Member for Rye has, in plain terms, called on the Barons of
England to save their order from democratic encroachments, by rejecting
this measure. All these arguments, all these appeals, being interpreted,
mean this: "Proclaim to your countrymen that you have no common
interests with them, no common sympathies with them; that you can be
powerful only by their weakness, and exalted only by their degradation;
that the corruption which disgusts them, and the oppression against
which their spirit rises up, are indispensable to your authority;
that the freedom and purity of election are incompatible with the very
existence of your House. Give them clearly to understand that your
power rests, not as they have hitherto imagined, on their rational
convictions, or on their habitual veneration, or on your own great
property, but on a system fertile of political evils, fertile also of
low iniquities of which ordinary justice take cognisance. Bind up, in
inseparable union, the privileges of your estate with the grievances
of ours: resolve to stand or fall with abuses visibly marked out for
destruction: tell the people that they are attacking you in attacking
the three holes in the wall, and that they shall never get rid of
the three holes in the wall, till they have got rid of you; that a
hereditary peerage and a representative assembly, can co-exist only in
name, and that, if they will have a real House of Peers, they must be
content with a mock House of Commons." This, I say, is the advice given
to the Lords by those who call themselves the friends of aristocracy.
That advice so pernicious will not be followed, I am well assured; yet
I cannot but listen to it with uneasiness. I cannot but wonder that it
should proceed from the lips of men who are constantly lecturing us on
the duty of consulting history and experience. Have they never heard
what effects counsels like their own, when too faithfully followed, have
produced? Have they never visited that neighbouring country, which still
presents to the eye, even of a passing stranger, the signs of a great
dissolution and renovation of society? Have they never walked by those
stately mansions, now sinking into decay, and portioned out into lodging
rooms, which line the silent streets of the Faubourg St Germain? Have
they never seen the ruins of those castles whose terraces and gardens
overhang the Loire? Have they never heard that from those magnificent
hotels, from those ancient castles, an aristocracy as splendid, as
brave, as proud, as accomplished, as ever Europe saw, was driven forth
to exile and beggary, to implore the charity of hostile Governments and
hostile creeds, to cut wood in the back settlements of America, or to
teach French in the schoolrooms of London? And why were those haughty
nobles destroyed with that utter destruction? Why were they scattered
over the face of the earth, their titles abolished, their escutcheons
defaced, their parks wasted, their palaces dismantled, their heritage
given to strangers? Because they had no sympathy with the people,
no discernment of the signs of their time; because, in the pride and
narrowness of their hearts, they called those whose warnings might
have saved them theorists and speculators; because they refused all
concession till the time had arrived when no concession would avail. I
have no apprehension that such a fate awaits the nobles of England. I
draw no parallel between our aristocracy and that of France. Those who
represent the peerage as a class whose power is incompatible with the
just influence of the people in the State, draw that parallel, and not
I. They do all in their power to place the Lords and Commons of England
in that position with respect to each other in which the French gentry
stood with respect to the Third Estate. But I am convinced that these
advisers will not succeed. We see, with pride and delight, among the
friends of the people, the Talbots, the Cavendishes, the princely house
of Howard. Foremost among those who have entitled themselves, by their
exertions in this House, to the lasting gratitude of their countrymen,
we see the descendants of Marlborough, of Russell, and of Derby. I hope,
and firmly believe, that the Lords will see what their interests and
their honour require. I hope, and firmly believe, that they will act in
such a manner as to entitle themselves to the esteem and affection of
the people. But if not, let not the enemies of Reform imagine that their
reign is straightway to recommence, or that they have obtained anything
more than a short and uneasy respite. We are bound to respect the
constitutional rights of the Peers; but we are bound also not to forget
our own. We, too, have our privileges; we, too, are an estate of the
realm. A House of Commons strong in the love and confidence of the
people, a House of Commons which has nothing to fear from a dissolution,
is something in the government. Some persons, I well know, indulge a
hope that the rejection of the bill will at once restore the domination
of that party which fled from power last November, leaving everything
abroad and everything at home in confusion; leaving the European system,
which it had built up at a vast cost of blood and treasure, falling to
pieces in every direction; leaving the dynasties which it had restored,
hastening into exile; leaving the nations which it had joined together,
breaking away from each other; leaving the fundholders in dismay;
leaving the peasantry in insurrection; leaving the most fertile counties
lighted up with the fires of incendiaries; leaving the capital in such
a state, that a royal procession could not pass safely through it.
Dark and terrible, beyond any season within my remembrance of political
affairs, was the day of their flight. Far darker and far more terrible
will be the day of their return. They will return in opposition to
the whole British nation, united as it was never before united on any
internal question; united as firmly as when the Armada was sailing up
the Channel; united as firmly as when Bonaparte pitched his camp on the
cliffs of Boulogne. They will return pledged to defend evils which the
people are resolved to destroy. They will return to a situation in which
they can stand only by crushing and trampling down public opinion, and
from which, if they fall, they may, in their fall, drag down with them
the whole frame of society. Against such evils, should such evils appear
to threaten the country, it will be our privilege and our duty to warn
our gracious and beloved Sovereign. It will be our privilege and our
duty to convey the wishes of a loyal people to the throne of a patriot
king. At such a crisis the proper place for the House of Commons is
in front of the nation; and in that place this House will assuredly
be found. Whatever prejudice or weakness may do elsewhere to ruin the
empire, here, I trust, will not be wanting the wisdom, the virtue, and
the energy that may save it.
*****
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. (OCTOBER 10, 1831) A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE
OF COMMONS ON THE 10TH OF OCTOBER, 1831.
On the morning of Saturday, the eighth of October, 1831, the House of
Lords, by a majority of 190 to 158, rejected the Reform Bill. On the
Monday following, Lord Ebrington, member for Devonshire, moved the
following resolution in the House of Commons:
"That while this House deeply laments the present fate of a bill for
amending the representation of the people in England and Wales,
in favour of which the opinion of the country stands unequivocally
pronounced, and which has been matured by discussions the most anxious
and laborious, it feels itself called upon to reassert its firm
adherence to the principle and leading provisions of that great measure,
and to express its unabated confidence in the integrity, perseverance,
and ability of those Ministers, who, in introducing and conducting it,
have so well consulted the best interests of the country."
The resolution was carried by 329 votes to 198. The following speech was
made early in the debate.
I doubt, Sir, whether any person who had merely heard the speech of the
right honourable Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr Goulburn.)
would have been able to conjecture what the question is on which we are
discussing, and what the occasion on which we are assembled. For myself,
I can with perfect certainty declare that never in the whole course of
my life did I feel my mind oppressed by so deep and solemn a sense
of responsibility as at the present moment. I firmly believe that the
country is now in danger of calamities greater than ever threatened it,
from domestic misgovernment or from foreign hostility. The danger is no
less than this, that there may be a complete alienation of the people
from their rulers. To soothe the public mind, to reconcile the people to
the delay, the short delay, which must intervene before their wishes can
be legitimately gratified, and in the meantime to avert civil discord,
and to uphold the authority of law, these are, I conceive, the objects
of my noble friend, the Member for Devonshire: these ought, at the
present crisis, to be the objects of every honest Englishman. They
are objects which will assuredly be attained, if we rise to this great
occasion, if we take our stand in the place which the Constitution has
assigned to us, if we employ, with becoming firmness and dignity, the
powers which belong to us as trustees of the nation, and as advisers of
the Throne.
Sir, the Resolution of my noble friend consists of two parts. He calls
upon us to declare our undiminished attachment to the principles of
the Reform Bill, and also our undiminished confidence in His Majesty's
Ministers. I consider these two declarations as identical. The question
of Reform is, in my opinion, of such paramount importance, that,
approving the principles of the Ministerial Bill, I must think the
Ministers who have brought that bill forward, although I may differ
from them on some minor points, entitled to the strongest support
of Parliament. The right honourable gentleman, the Member for the
University of Cambridge, has attempted to divert the course of the
debate to questions comparatively unimportant. He has said much about
the coal duty, about the candle duty, about the budget of the present
Chancellor of the Exchequer. On most of the points to which he has
referred, it would be easy for me, were I so inclined, to defend the
Ministers; and where I could not defend them, I should find it easy to
recriminate on those who preceded them. The right honourable Member for
the University of Cambridge has taunted the Ministers with the defeat
which their plan respecting the timber trade sustained in the last
Parliament. I might, perhaps, at a more convenient season, be tempted
to inquire whether that defeat was more disgraceful to them or to their
predecessors. I might, perhaps, be tempted to ask the right honourable
gentleman whether, if he had not been treated, while in office, with
more fairness than he has shown while in opposition, it would have been
in his power to carry his best bill, the Beer Bill? He has accused
the Ministers of bringing forward financial propositions, and then
withdrawing those propositions. Did not he bring forward, during the
Session of 1830, a plan respecting the sugar duties? And was not that
plan withdrawn? But, Sir, this is mere trifling. I will not be seduced
from the matter in hand by the right honourable gentleman's example.
At the present moment I can see only one question in the State, the
question of Reform; only two parties, the friends of the Reform Bill and
its enemies.
It is not my intention, Sir, again to discuss the merits of the Reform
Bill. The principle of that bill received the approbation of the late
House of Commons after a discussion of ten nights; and the bill as it
now stands, after a long and most laborious investigation, passed the
present House of Commons by a majority which was nearly half as large
again as the minority. This was little more than a fortnight ago.
Nothing has since occurred to change our opinion. The justice of the
case is unaltered. The public enthusiasm is undiminished. Old Sarum has
grown no larger. Manchester has grown no smaller. In addressing this
House, therefore, I am entitled to assume that the bill is in itself a
good bill. If so, ought we to abandon it merely because the Lords have
rejected it? We ought to respect the lawful privileges of their
House; but we ought also to assert our own. We are constitutionally as
independent of their Lordships as their Lordships are of us. We have
precisely as good a right to adhere to our opinion as they have to
dissent from it. In speaking of their decision, I will attempt to follow
that example of moderation which was so judiciously set by my noble
friend, the Member for Devonshire. I will only say that I do not think
that they are more competent to form a correct judgment on a political
question than we are. It is certain that, on all the most important
points on which the two Houses have for a long time past differed,
the Lords have at length come over to the opinion of the Commons. I am
therefore entitled to say, that with respect to all those points, the
Peers themselves being judges, the House of Commons was in the right and
the House of Lords in the wrong. It was thus with respect to the Slave
trade: it was thus with respect to Catholic Emancipation: it was thus
with several other important questions. I, therefore, cannot think that
we ought, on the present occasion, to surrender our judgment to those
who have acknowledged that, on former occasions of the same kind, we
have judged more correctly than they.
Then again, Sir, I cannot forget how the majority and the minority in
this House were composed; I cannot forget that the majority contained
almost all those gentlemen who are returned by large bodies of electors.
It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say, that there were single Members
of the majority who had more constituents than the whole minority put
together. I speak advisedly and seriously. I believe that the number of
freeholders of Yorkshire exceeds that of all the electors who return the
Opposition. I cannot with propriety comment here on any reports which
may have been circulated concerning the majority and minority in the
House of Lords. I may, however, mention these notoriously historical
facts; that during the last forty years the powers of the executive
Government have been, almost without intermission, exercised by a party
opposed to Reform; and that a very great number of Peers have been
created, and all the present Bishops raised to the bench during those
years. On this question, therefore, while I feel more than usual respect
for the judgment of the House of Commons, I feel less than usual respect
for the judgment of the House of Lords. Our decision is the decision of
the nation; the decision of their Lordships can scarcely be considered
as the decision even of that class from which the Peers are
generally selected, and of which they may be considered as virtual
representatives, the great landed gentlemen of England. It seems to me
clear, therefore, that we ought, notwithstanding what has passed in the
other House, to adhere to our opinion concerning the Reform Bill.
The next question is this; ought we to make a formal declaration that we
adhere to our opinion? I think that we ought to make such a declaration;
and I am sure that we cannot make it in more temperate or more
constitutional terms than those which my noble friend asks us to adopt.
I support the Resolution which he has proposed with all my heart and
soul: I support it as a friend to Reform; but I support it still more
as a friend to law, to property, to social order. No observant and
unprejudiced man can look forward without great alarm to the effects
which the recent decision of the Lords may possibly produce. I do not
predict, I do not expect, open, armed insurrection. What I apprehend
is this, that the people may engage in a silent, but extensive and
persevering war against the law. What I apprehend is, that England may
exhibit the same spectacle which Ireland exhibited three years ago,
agitators stronger than the magistrate, associations stronger than the
law, a Government powerful enough to be hated, and not powerful enough
to be feared, a people bent on indemnifying themselves by illegal
excesses for the want of legal privileges. I fear, that we may before
long see the tribunals defied, the tax-gatherer resisted, public credit
shaken, property insecure, the whole frame of society hastening to
dissolution. It is easy to say, "Be bold: be firm: defy intimidation:
let the law have its course: the law is strong enough to put down the
seditious." Sir, we have heard all this blustering before; and we know
in what it ended. It is the blustering of little men whose lot has
fallen on a great crisis. Xerxes scourging the winds, Canute commanding
the waves to recede from his footstool, were but types of the folly
of those who apply the maxims of the Quarter Sessions to the great
convulsions of society. The law has no eyes: the law has no hands:
the law is nothing, nothing but a piece of paper printed by the King's
printer, with the King's arms at the top, till public opinion breathes
the breath of life into the dead letter. We found this in Ireland. The
Catholic Association bearded the Government. The Government resolved
to put down the Association. An indictment was brought against my
honourable and learned friend, the Member for Kerry. The Grand Jury
threw it out. Parliament met. The Lords Commissioners came down with a
speech recommending the suppression of the self-constituted legislature
of Dublin. A bill was brought in: it passed both Houses by large
majorities: it received the Royal assent. And what effect did it
produce? Exactly as much as that old Act of Queen Elizabeth, still
unrepealed, by which it is provided that every man who, without a
special exemption, shall eat meat on Fridays and Saturdays, shall pay a
fine of twenty shillings or go to prison for a month. Not only was the
Association not destroyed: its power was not for one day suspended: it
flourished and waxed strong under the law which had been made for the
purpose of annihilating it. The elections of 1826, the Clare election
two years later, proved the folly of those who think that nations are
governed by wax and parchment: and, at length, in the close of 1828, the
Government had only one plain choice before it, concession or civil war.
Sir, I firmly believe that, if the people of England shall lose all hope
of carrying the Reform Bill by constitutional means, they will forthwith
begin to offer to the Government the same kind of resistance which
was offered to the late Government, three years ago, by the people of
Ireland, a resistance by no means amounting to rebellion, a resistance
rarely amounting to any crime defined by the law, but a resistance
nevertheless which is quite sufficient to obstruct the course of
justice, to disturb the pursuits of industry, and to prevent the
accumulation of wealth. And is not this a danger which we ought to fear?
And is not this a danger which we are bound, by all means in our power,
to avert? And who are those who taunt us for yielding to intimidation?
Who are those who affect to speak with contempt of associations, and
agitators, and public meetings? Even the very persons who, scarce two
years ago, gave up to associations, and agitators, and public meetings,
their boasted Protestant Constitution, proclaiming all the time that
they saw the evils of Catholic Emancipation as strongly as ever. Surely,
surely, the note of defiance which is now so loudly sounded in our ears,
proceeds with a peculiarly bad grace from men whose highest glory it
is that they abased themselves to the dust before a people whom their
policy had driven to madness, from men the proudest moment of whose
lives was that in which they appeared in the character of persecutors
scared into toleration. Do they mean to indemnify themselves for the
humiliation of quailing before the people of Ireland by trampling on the
people of England? If so, they deceive themselves. The case of Ireland,
though a strong one, was by no means so strong a case as that with which
we have now to deal. The Government, in its struggle with the Catholics
of Ireland, had Great Britain at its back. Whom will it have at its back
in the struggle with the Reformers of Great Britain? I know only two
ways in which societies can permanently be governed, by public opinion,
and by the sword. A Government having at its command the armies, the
fleets, and the revenues of Great Britain, might possibly hold Ireland
by the sword. So Oliver Cromwell held Ireland; so William the Third held
it; so Mr Pitt held it; so the Duke of Wellington might perhaps have
held it. But to govern Great Britain by the sword! So wild a thought has
never, I will venture to say, occurred to any public man of any party;
and, if any man were frantic enough to make the attempt, he would find,
before three days had expired, that there is no better sword than that
which is fashioned out of a ploughshare. But, if not by the sword, how
is the country to be governed? I understand how the peace is kept at New
York. It is by the assent and support of the people. I understand also
how the peace is kept at Milan. It is by the bayonets of the Austrian
soldiers. But how the peace is to be kept when you have neither the
popular assent nor the military force, how the peace is to be kept
in England by a Government acting on the principles of the present
Opposition, I do not understand.
There is in truth a great anomaly in the relation between the English
people and their Government. Our institutions are either too popular or
not popular enough. The people have not sufficient power in making the
laws; but they have quite sufficient power to impede the execution of
the laws when made. The Legislature is almost entirely aristocratical;
the machinery by which the degrees of the Legislature are carried into
effect is almost entirely popular; and, therefore, we constantly see
all the power which ought to execute the law, employed to counteract the
law. Thus, for example, with a criminal code which carries its rigour
to the length of atrocity, we have a criminal judicature which often
carries its lenity to the length of perjury. Our law of libel is the
most absurdly severe that ever existed, so absurdly severe that, if it
were carried into full effect, it would be much more oppressive than
a censorship. And yet, with this severe law of libel, we have a
press which practically is as free as the air. In 1819 the Ministers
complained of the alarming increase of seditious and blasphemous
publications. They proposed a bill of great rigour to stop the growth
of the evil; and they carried their bill. It was enacted, that the
publisher of a seditious libel might, on a second conviction, be
banished, and that if he should return from banishment, he might be
transported. How often was this law put in force? Not once. Last year we
repealed it: but it was already dead, or rather it was dead born. It
was obsolete before Le Roi le veut had been pronounced over it. For any
effect which it produced it might as well have been in the Code Napoleon
as in the English Statute Book. And why did the Government, having
solicited and procured so sharp and weighty a weapon, straightway hang
it up to rust? Was there less sedition, were there fewer libels, after
the passing of the Act than before it? Sir, the very next year was the
year 1820, the year of the Bill of Pains and Penalties against Queen
Caroline, the very year when the public mind was most excited, the very
year when the public press was most scurrilous. Why then did not the
Ministers use their new law? Because they durst not: because they could
not. They had obtained it with ease; for in obtaining it they had to
deal with a subservient Parliament. They could not execute it: for in
executing it they would have to deal with a refractory people. These
are instances of the difficulty of carrying the law into effect when the
people are inclined to thwart their rulers. The great anomaly, or, to
speak more properly, the great evil which I have described, would,
I believe, be removed by the Reform Bill. That bill would establish
harmony between the people and the Legislature. It would give a fair
share in the making of laws to those without whose co-operation laws are
mere waste paper. Under a reformed system we should not see, as we now
often see, the nation repealing Acts of Parliament as fast as we and
the Lords can pass them. As I believe that the Reform Bill would produce
this blessed and salutary concord, so I fear that the rejection of
the Reform Bill, if that rejection should be considered as final, will
aggravate the evil which I have been describing to an unprecedented,
to a terrible extent. To all the laws which might be passed for the
collection of the revenue, or for the prevention of sedition, the people
would oppose the same kind of resistance by means of which they have
succeeded in mitigating, I might say in abrogating, the law of libel.
There would be so many offenders that the Government would scarcely know
at whom to aim its blow. Every offender would have so many accomplices
and protectors that the blow would almost always miss the aim. The Veto
of the people, a Veto not pronounced in set form like that of the Roman
Tribunes, but quite as effectual as that of the Roman Tribunes for the
purpose of impeding public measures, would meet the Government at every
turn. The administration would be unable to preserve order at home, or
to uphold the national honour abroad; and, at length, men who are now
moderate, who now think of revolution with horror, would begin to wish
that the lingering agony of the State might be terminated by one fierce,
sharp, decisive crisis.
Is there a way of escape from these calamities? I believe that there
is. I believe that, if we do our duty, if we give the people reason to
believe that the accomplishment of their wishes is only deferred, if
we declare our undiminished attachment to the Reform Bill, and our
resolution to support no Minister who will not support that bill, we
shall avert the fearful disasters which impend over the country. There
is danger that, at this conjuncture, men of more zeal than wisdom may
obtain a fatal influence over the public mind. With these men will be
joined others, who have neither zeal nor wisdom, common barrators in
politics, dregs of society which, in times of violent agitation, are
tossed up from the bottom to the top, and which, in quiet times, sink
again from the top to their natural place at the bottom. To these men
nothing is so hateful as the prospect of a reconciliation between the
orders of the State. A crisis like that which now makes every honest
citizen sad and anxious fills these men with joy, and with a detestable
hope. And how is it that such men, formed by nature and education to be
objects of mere contempt, can ever inspire terror? How is it that such
men, without talents or acquirements sufficient for the management of a
vestry, sometimes become dangerous to great empires? The secret of their
power lies in the indolence or faithlessness of those who ought to take
the lead in the redress of public grievances. The whole history of low
traders in sedition is contained in that fine old Hebrew fable which we
have all read in the Book of Judges. The trees meet to choose a king.
The vine, and the fig tree, and the olive tree decline the office. Then
it is that the sovereignty of the forest devolves upon the bramble:
then it is that from a base and noxious shrub goes forth the fire which
devours the cedars of Lebanon. Let us be instructed. If we are afraid
of political Unions and Reform Associations, let the House of Commons
become the chief point of political union: let the House of Commons
be the great Reform Association. If we are afraid that the people may
attempt to accomplish their wishes by unlawful means, let us give them
a solemn pledge that we will use in their cause all our high and ancient
privileges, so often victorious in old conflicts with tyranny; those
privileges which our ancestors invoked, not in vain, on the day when a
faithless king filled our house with his guards, took his seat, Sir, on
your chair, and saw your predecessor kneeling on the floor before
him. The Constitution of England, thank God, is not one of those
constitutions which are past all repair, and which must, for the public
welfare, be utterly destroyed. It has a decayed part; but it has also
a sound and precious part. It requires purification; but it contains
within itself the means by which that purification may be effected.
We read that in old times, when the villeins were driven to revolt by
oppression, when the castles of the nobility were burned to the ground,
when the warehouses of London were pillaged, when a hundred thousand
insurgents appeared in arms on Blackheath, when a foul murder
perpetrated in their presence had raised their passions to madness, when
they were looking round for some captain to succeed and avenge him whom
they had lost, just then, before Hob Miller, or Tom Carter, or Jack
Straw, could place himself at their head, the King rode up to them and
exclaimed, "I will be your leader!" and at once the infuriated multitude
laid down their arms, submitted to his guidance, dispersed at his
command. Herein let us imitate him. Our countrymen are, I fear, at
this moment, but too much disposed to lend a credulous ear to selfish
impostors. Let us say to them, "We are your leaders; we, your own house
of Commons; we, the constitutional interpreters of your wishes; the
knights of forty English shires, the citizens and burgesses of all your
largest towns. Our lawful power shall be firmly exerted to the utmost
in your cause; and our lawful power is such, that when firmly exerted in
your cause, it must finally prevail." This tone it is our interest and
our duty to take. The circumstances admit of no delay. Is there one
among us who is not looking with breathless anxiety for the next tidings
which may arrive from the remote parts of the kingdom? Even while I
speak, the moments are passing away, the irrevocable moments pregnant
with the destiny of a great people. The country is in danger: it may be
saved: we can save it: this is the way: this is the time. In our hands
are the issues of great good and great evil, the issues of the life and
death of the State. May the result of our deliberations be the repose
and prosperity of that noble country which is entitled to all our love;
and for the safety of which we are answerable to our own consciences, to
the memory of future ages, to the Judge of all hearts!
*****
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. (DECEMBER 16, 1831) A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE
HOUSE OF COMMONS ON THE 16TH OF DECEMBER 1831.
On Friday, the sixteenth of December 1831, Lord Althorpe moved the
second reading of the Bill to amend the representation of the people in
England and Wales. Lord Porchester moved, as an amendment, that the bill
should be read a second time that day six months. The debate lasted till
after midnight, and was then adjourned till twelve at noon. The House
did not divide till one on the Sunday morning. The amendment was then
rejected by 324 votes to 162; and the original motion was carried. The
following Speech was made on the first night of the debate.
I can assure my noble friend (Lord Mahon.), for whom I entertain
sentiments of respect and kindness which no political difference will,
I trust, ever disturb, that his remarks have given me no pain, except,
indeed, the pain which I feel at being compelled to say a few words
about myself. Those words shall be very few. I know how unpopular
egotism is in this House. My noble friend says that, in the debates of
last March, I declared myself opposed to the ballot, and that I have
since recanted, for the purpose of making myself popular with the
inhabitants of Leeds. My noble friend is altogether mistaken. I never
said, in any debate, that I was opposed to the ballot. The word ballot
never passed my lips within this House. I observed strict silence
respecting it on two accounts; in the first place, because my own
opinions were, till very lately, undecided; in the second place, because
I knew that the agitation of that question, a question of which the
importance appears to me to be greatly overrated, would divide those on
whose firm and cordial union the safety of the empire depends. My noble
friend has taken this opportunity of replying to a speech which I made
last October. The doctrines which I then laid down were, according to
him, most intemperate and dangerous. Now, Sir, it happens, curiously
enough, that my noble friend has himself asserted, in his speech of this
night, those very doctrines, in language so nearly resembling mine that
I might fairly accuse him of plagiarism. I said that laws have no force
in themselves, and that, unless supported by public opinion, they are
a mere dead letter. The noble Lord has said exactly the same thing
to-night. "Keep your old Constitution," he exclaims; "for, whatever may
be its defects in theory, it has more of the public veneration than your
new Constitution will have; and no laws can be efficient, unless they
have the public veneration." I said, that statutes are in themselves
only wax and parchment; and I was called an incendiary by the
opposition. The noble Lord has said to-night that statutes in themselves
are only ink and parchment; and those very persons who reviled me have
enthusiastically cheered him. I am quite at a loss to understand how
doctrines which are, in his mouth, true and constitutional, can, in
mine, be false and revolutionary.
But, Sir, it is time that I should address myself to the momentous
question before us. I shall certainly give my best support to this bill,
through all its stages; and, in so doing, I conceive that I shall act in
strict conformity with the resolution by which this House, towards
the close of the late Session, declared its unabated attachment to the
principles and to the leading provisions of the First Reform Bill. All
those principles, all those leading provisions, I find in the
present measure. In the details there are, undoubtedly, considerable
alterations. Most of the alterations appear to me to be improvements;
and even those alterations which I cannot consider as in themselves
improvements will yet be most useful, if their effect shall be to
conciliate opponents, and to facilitate the adjustment of a question
which, for the sake of order, for the sake of peace, for the sake of
trade, ought to be, not only satisfactorily, but speedily settled. We
have been told, Sir, that, if we pronounce this bill to be a better bill
than the last, we recant all the doctrines which we maintained during
the last Session, we sing our palinode; we allow that we have had a
great escape; we allow that our own conduct was deserving of censure;
we allow that the party which was the minority in this House, and, most
unhappily for the country, the majority in the other House, has saved
the country from a great calamity. Sir, even if this charge were well
founded, there are those who should have been prevented by prudence, if
not by magnanimity, from bringing it forward. I remember an Opposition
which took a very different course. I remember an Opposition which,
while excluded from power, taught all its doctrines to the Government;
which, after labouring long, and sacrificing much, in order to effect
improvements in various parts of our political and commercial system,
saw the honour of those improvements appropriated by others. But the
members of that Opposition had, I believe, a sincere desire to promote
the public good. They, therefore, raised no shout of triumph over the
recantations of their proselytes. They rejoiced, but with no ungenerous
joy, when their principles of trade, of jurisprudence, of foreign
policy, of religious liberty, became the principles of the
Administration. They were content that he who came into fellowship with
them at the eleventh hour should have a far larger share of the reward
than those who had borne the burthen and heat of the day. In the year
1828, a single division in this House changed the whole policy of the
Government with respect to the Test and Corporation Acts. My noble
friend, the Paymaster of the Forces, then sat where the right honourable
Baronet, the member for Tamworth, now sits. I do not remember that, when
the right honourable Baronet announced his change of purpose, my noble
friend sprang up to talk about palinodes, to magnify the wisdom and
virtue of the Whigs, and to sneer at his new coadjutors. Indeed, I am
not sure that the members of the late Opposition did not carry their
indulgence too far; that they did not too easily suffer the fame of
Grattan and Romilly to be transferred to less deserving claimants; that
they were not too ready, in the joy with which they welcomed the tardy
and convenient repentance of their converts, to grant a general amnesty
for the errors of the insincerity of years. If it were true that we had
recanted, this ought not to be made matter of charge against us by men
whom posterity will remember by nothing but recantations. But, in truth,
we recant nothing. We have nothing to recant. We support this bill. We
may possibly think it a better bill than that which preceded it. But
are we therefore bound to admit that we were in the wrong, that the
Opposition was in the right, that the House of Lords has conferred a
great benefit on the nation? We saw--who did not see?--great defects
in the first bill. But did we see nothing else? Is delay no evil? Is
prolonged excitement no evil? Is it no evil that the heart of a great
people should be made sick by deferred hope? We allow that many of the
changes which have been made are improvements. But we think that it
would have been far better for the country to have had the last bill,
with all its defects, than the present bill, with all its improvements.
Second thoughts are proverbially the best, but there are emergencies
which do not admit of second thoughts. There probably never was a law
which might not have been amended by delay. But there have been many
cases in which there would have been more mischief in the delay than
benefit in the amendments. The first bill, however inferior it may have
been in its details to the present bill, was yet herein far superior to
the present bill, than it was the first. If the first bill had passed,
it would, I firmly believe, have produced a complete reconciliation
between the aristocracy and the people. It is my earnest wish and prayer
that the present bill may produce this blessed effect; but I cannot say
that my hopes are so sanguine as they were at the beginning of the last
Session. The decision of the House of Lords has, I fear, excited in the
public mind feelings of resentment which will not soon be allayed. What
then, it is said, would you legislate in haste? Would you legislate in
times of great excitement concerning matters of such deep concern? Yes,
Sir, I would: and if any bad consequences should follow from the haste
and the excitement, let those be held answerable who, when there was no
need of haste, when there existed no excitement, refused to listen to
any project of Reform, nay, who made it an argument against Reform, that
the public mind was not excited. When few meetings were held, when few
petitions were sent up to us, these politicians said, "Would you alter
a Constitution with which the people are perfectly satisfied?" And now,
when the kingdom from one end to the other is convulsed by the question
of Reform, we hear it said by the very same persons, "Would you alter
the Representative system in such agitated times as these?" Half the
logic of misgovernment lies in this one sophistical dilemma: If the
people are turbulent, they are unfit for liberty: if they are quiet,
they do not want liberty.
I allow that hasty legislation is an evil. I allow that there are great
objections to legislating in troubled times. But reformers are compelled
to legislate fast, because bigots will not legislate early. Reformers
are compelled to legislate in times of excitement, because bigots will
not legislate in times of tranquillity. If, ten years ago, nay, if only
two years ago, there had been at the head of affairs men who understood
the signs of the times and the temper of the nation, we should not have
been forced to hurry now. If we cannot take our time, it is because we
have to make up for their lost time. If they had reformed gradually,
we might have reformed gradually; but we are compelled to move fast,
because they would not move at all.
Though I admit, Sir, that this bill is in its details superior to the
former bill, I must say that the best parts of this bill, those parts
for the sake of which principally I support it, those parts for the sake
of which I would support it, however imperfect its details might be,
are parts which it has in common with the former bill. It destroys
nomination; it admits the great body of the middle orders to a share in
the government; and it contains provisions which will, as I conceive,
greatly diminish the expense of elections.
Touching the expense of elections I will say a few words, because that
part of the subject has not, I think, received so much attention as it
deserves. Whenever the nomination boroughs are attacked, the opponents
of Reform produce a long list of eminent men who have sate for those
boroughs, and who, they tell us, would never have taken any part in
public affairs but for those boroughs. Now, Sir, I suppose no person
will maintain that a large constituent body is likely to prefer ignorant
and incapable men to men of information and ability? Whatever objections
there may be to democratic institutions, it was never, I believe,
doubted that those institutions are favourable to the development of
talents. We may prefer the constitution of Sparta to that of Athens, or
the constitution of Venice to that of Florence: but no person will
deny that Athens produced more great men than Sparta, or that Florence
produced more great men than Venice. But to come nearer home: the five
largest English towns which have now the right of returning two members
each by popular election, are Westminster, Southwark, Liverpool,
Bristol, and Norwich. Now let us see what members those places have sent
to Parliament. I will not speak of the living, though among the living
are some of the most distinguished ornaments of the House. I will
confine myself to the dead. Among many respectable and useful members
of Parliament, whom these towns have returned, during the last half
century, I find Mr Burke, Mr Fox, Mr Sheridan, Mr Windham, Mr Tierney,
Sir Samuel Romilly, Mr Canning, Mr Huskisson. These were eight of
the most illustrious parliamentary leaders of the generation which
is passing away from the world. Mr Pitt was, perhaps, the only
person worthy to make a ninth with them. It is, surely, a remarkable
circumstance that, of the nine most distinguished Members of the House
of Commons who have died within the last forty years, eight should have
been returned to Parliament by the five largest represented towns. I am,
therefore, warranted in saying that great constituent bodies are quite
as competent to discern merit, and quite as much disposed to reward
merit, as the proprietors of boroughs. It is true that some of the
distinguished statesmen whom I have mentioned would never have been
known to large constituent bodies if they had not first sate for
nomination boroughs. But why is this? Simply, because the expense of
contesting popular places, under the present system, is ruinously
great. A poor man cannot defray it; an untried man cannot expect his
constituents to defray it for him. And this is the way in which our
Representative system is defended. Corruption vouches corruption. Every
abuse is made the plea for another abuse. We must have nomination at
Gatton because we have profusion at Liverpool. Sir, these arguments
convince me, not that no Reform is required, but that a very deep and
searching Reform is required. If two evils serve in some respects to
counterbalance each other, this is a reason, not for keeping both, but
for getting rid of both together. At present you close against men of
talents that broad, that noble entrance which belongs to them, and which
ought to stand wide open to them; and in exchange you open to them a bye
entrance, low and narrow, always obscure, often filthy, through which,
too often, they can pass only by crawling on their hands and knees, and
from which they too often emerge sullied with stains never to be washed
away. But take the most favourable case. Suppose that the member who
sits for a nomination borough owes his seat to a man of virtue and
honour, to a man whose service is perfect freedom, to a man who would
think himself degraded by any proof of gratitude which might degrade
his nominee. Yet is it nothing that such a member comes into this House
wearing the badge, though not feeling the chain of servitude? Is it
nothing that he cannot speak of his independence without exciting a
smile? Is it nothing that he is considered, not as a Representative, but
as an adventurer? This is what your system does for men of genius. It
admits them to political power, not as, under better institutions, they
would be admitted to power, erect, independent, unsullied; but by
means which corrupt the virtue of many, and in some degree diminish the
authority of all. Could any system be devised, better fitted to pervert
the principles and break the spirit of men formed to be the glory of
their country? And, can we mention no instance in which this system has
made such men useless, or worse than useless, to the country of which
their talents were the ornament, and might, in happier circumstances,
have been the salvation? Ariel, the beautiful and kindly Ariel, doing
the bidding of the loathsome and malignant Sycorax, is but a faint
type of genius enslaved by the spells, and employed in the drudgery of
corruption--
"A spirit too delicate
To act those earthy and abhorred commands."
We cannot do a greater service to men of real merit than by destroying
that which has been called their refuge, which is their house of
bondage; by taking from them the patronage of the great, and giving to
them in its stead the respect and confidence of the people. The bill now
before us will, I believe, produce that happy effect. It facilitates the
canvass; it reduces the expense of legal agency; it shortens the poll;
above all, it disfranchises the outvoters. It is not easy to calculate
the precise extent to which these changes will diminish the cost of
elections. I have attempted, however, to obtain some information on this
subject. I have applied to a gentleman of great experience in affairs of
this kind, a gentleman who, at the last three general elections, managed
the finances of the popular party in one of the largest boroughs in the
kingdom. He tells me, that at the general election of 1826, when that
borough was contested, the expenses of the popular candidate amounted to
eighteen thousand pounds; and that, by the best estimate which can now
be made, the borough may, under the reformed system, be as effectually
contested for one tenth part of that sum. In the new constituent bodies
there are no ancient rights reserved. In those bodies, therefore, the
expense of an election will be still smaller. I firmly believe, that it
will be possible to poll out Manchester for less than the market price
of Old Sarum.
Sir, I have, from the beginning of these discussions, supported Reform
on two grounds; first, because I believe it to be in itself a good
thing; and secondly, because I think the dangers of withholding it so
great that, even if it were an evil, it would be the less of two evils.
The dangers of the country have in no wise diminished. I believe that
they have greatly increased. It is, I fear, impossible to deny that
what has happened with respect to almost every great question that
ever divided mankind has happened also with respect to the Reform Bill.
Wherever great interests are at stake there will be much excitement; and
wherever there is much excitement there will be some extravagance. The
same great stirring of the human mind which produced the Reformation
produced also the follies and crimes of the Anabaptists. The same spirit
which resisted the Ship-money, and abolished the Star Chamber, produced
the Levellers and the Fifth Monarchy men. And so, it cannot be denied
that bad men, availing themselves of the agitation produced by the
question of Reform, have promulgated, and promulgated with some success,
doctrines incompatible with the existence, I do not say of monarchy, or
of aristocracy, but of all law, of all order, of all property, of all
civilisation, of all that makes us to differ from Mohawks or Hottentots.
I bring no accusation against that portion of the working classes which
has been imposed upon by these doctrines. Those persons are what their
situation has made them, ignorant from want of leisure, irritable
from the sense of distress. That they should be deluded by impudent
assertions and gross sophisms; that, suffering cruel privations, they
should give ready credence to promises of relief; that, never having
investigated the nature and operation of government, they should expect
impossibilities from it, and should reproach it for not performing
impossibilities; all this is perfectly natural. No errors which they may
commit ought ever to make us forget that it is in all probability owing
solely to the accident of our situation that we have not fallen into
errors precisely similar. There are few of us who do not know from
experience that, even with all our advantages of education, pain and
sorrow can make us very querulous and very unreasonable. We ought not,
therefore, to be surprised that, as the Scotch proverb says, "it should
be ill talking between a full man and a fasting;" that the logic of
the rich man who vindicates the rights of property, should seem very
inconclusive to the poor man who hears his children cry for bread.
I bring, I say, no accusation against the working classes. I would
withhold from them nothing which it might be for their good to possess.
I see with pleasure that, by the provisions of the Reform Bill, the most
industrious and respectable of our labourers will be admitted to a share
in the government of the State. If I would refuse to the working people
that larger share of power which some of them have demanded, I would
refuse it, because I am convinced that, by giving it, I should only
increase their distress. I admit that the end of government is their
happiness. But, that they may be governed for their happiness, they must
not be governed according to the doctrines which they have learned from
their illiterate, incapable, low-minded flatterers.
But, Sir, the fact that such doctrines have been promulgated among the
multitude is a strong argument for a speedy and effectual reform.
That government is attacked is a reason for making the foundations
of government broader, and deeper, and more solid. That property is
attacked is a reason for binding together all proprietors in the
firmest union. That the agitation of the question of Reform has enabled
worthless demagogues to propagate their notions with some success is a
reason for speedily settling the question in the only way in which it
can be settled. It is difficult, Sir, to conceive any spectacle more
alarming than that which presents itself to us, when we look at the two
extreme parties in this country; a narrow oligarchy above; an infuriated
multitude below; on the one side the vices engendered by power; on the
other side the vices engendered by distress; one party blindly averse
to improvement; the other party blindly clamouring for destruction; one
party ascribing to political abuses the sanctity of property; the other
party crying out against property as a political abuse. Both these
parties are alike ignorant of their true interest. God forbid that the
state should ever be at the mercy of either, or should ever experience
the calamities which must result from a collision between them! I
anticipate no such horrible event. For, between those two parties
stands a third party, infinitely more powerful than both the others put
together, attacked by both, vilified by both, but destined, I trust,
to save both from the fatal effects of their own folly. To that party
I have never ceased, through all the vicissitudes of public affairs, to
look with confidence and with good a hope. I speak of that great party
which zealously and steadily supported the first Reform Bill, and
which will, I have no doubt, support the second Reform Bill with equal
steadiness and equal zeal. That party is the middle class of England,
with the flower of the aristocracy at its head, and the flower of the
working classes bringing up its rear. That great party has taken its
immovable stand between the enemies of all order and the enemies of
all liberty. It will have Reform: it will not have revolution: it will
destroy political abuses: it will not suffer the rights of property to
be assailed: it will preserve, in spite of themselves, those who are
assailing it, from the right and from the left, with contradictory
accusations: it will be a daysman between them: it will lay its hand
upon them both: it will not suffer them to tear each other in pieces.
While that great party continues unbroken, as it now is unbroken, I
shall not relinquish the hope that this great contest may be conducted,
by lawful means, to a happy termination. But, of this I am assured, that
by means, lawful or unlawful, to a termination, happy or unhappy, this
contest must speedily come. All that I know of the history of past
times, all the observations that I have been able to make on the present
state of the country, have convinced me that the time has arrived when
a great concession must be made to the democracy of England; that the
question, whether the change be in itself good or bad, has become a
question of secondary importance; that, good or bad, the thing must
be done; that a law as strong as the laws of attraction and motion has
decreed it.
I well know that history, when we look at it in small portions, may be
so construed as to mean anything, that it may be interpreted in as many
ways as a Delphic oracle. "The French Revolution," says one expositor,
"was the effect of concession." "Not so," cries another: "The French
Revolution was produced by the obstinacy of an arbitrary government."
"If the French nobles," says the first, "had refused to sit with the
Third Estate, they would never have been driven from their country."
"They would never have been driven from their country," answers the
other, "if they had agreed to the reforms proposed by M. Turgot." These
controversies can never be brought to any decisive test, or to any
satisfactory conclusion. But, as I believe that history, when we look at
it in small fragments, proves anything, or nothing, so I believe that
it is full of useful and precious instruction when we contemplate it
in large portions, when we take in, at one view, the whole lifetime of
great societies. I believe that it is possible to obtain some insight
into the law which regulates the growth of communities, and some
knowledge of the effects which that growth produces. They history of
England, in particular, is the history of a government constantly
giving way, sometimes peaceably, sometimes after a violent struggle,
but constantly giving way before a nation which has been constantly
advancing. The forest laws, the laws of villenage, the oppressive power
of the Roman Catholic Church, the power, scarcely less oppressive,
which, during some time after the Reformation, was exercised by the
Protestant Establishment, the prerogatives of the Crown, the censorship
of the Press, successively yielded. The abuses of the representative
system are now yielding to the same irresistible force. It was
impossible for the Stuarts, and it would have been impossible for them
if they had possessed all the energy of Richelieu, and all the craft of
Mazarin, to govern England as England had been governed by the Tudors.
It was impossible for the princes of the House of Hanover to govern
England as England had been governed by the Stuarts. And so it is
impossible that England should be any longer governed as it was governed
under the four first princes of the House of Hanover. I say impossible.
I believe that over the great changes of the moral world we possess as
little power as over the great changes of the physical world. We can
no more prevent time from changing the distribution of property and
of intelligence, we can no more prevent property and intelligence from
aspiring to political power, than we can change the courses of the
seasons and of the tides. In peace or in tumult, by means of old
institutions, where those institutions are flexible, over the ruins
of old institutions, where those institutions oppose an unbending
resistance, the great march of society proceeds, and must proceed. The
feeble efforts of individuals to bear back are lost and swept away in
the mighty rush with which the species goes onward. Those who appear to
lead the movement are, in fact, only whirled along before it; those who
attempt to resist it, are beaten down and crushed beneath it.
It is because rulers do not pay sufficient attention to the stages of
this great movement, because they underrate its force, because they are
ignorant of its law, that so many violent and fearful revolutions have
changed the face of society. We have heard it said a hundred times
during these discussions, we have heard it said repeatedly in the course
of this very debate, that the people of England are more free than ever
they were, that the Government is more democratic than ever it was; and
this is urged as an argument against Reform. I admit the fact; but
I deny the inference. It is a principle never to be forgotten, in
discussions like this, that it is not by absolute, but by relative
misgovernment that nations are roused to madness. It is not sufficient
to look merely at the form of government. We must look also to the state
of the public mind. The worst tyrant that ever had his neck wrung in
modern Europe might have passed for a paragon of clemency in Persia or
Morocco. Our Indian subjects submit patiently to a monopoly of salt. We
tried a stamp duty, a duty so light as to be scarcely perceptible,
on the fierce breed of the old Puritans; and we lost an empire. The
Government of Louis the Sixteenth was certainly a much better and milder
Government than that of Louis the Fourteenth; yet Louis the Fourteenth
was admired, and even loved, by his people. Louis the Sixteenth died on
the scaffold. Why? Because, though the Government had made many steps in
the career of improvement, it had not advanced so rapidly as the nation.
Look at our own history. The liberties of the people were at least as
much respected by Charles the First as by Henry the Eighth, by James the
Second as by Edward the Sixth. But did this save the crown of James the
Second? Did this save the head of Charles the First? Every person
who knows the history of our civil dissensions knows that all those
arguments which are now employed by the opponents of the Reform Bill
might have been employed, and were actually employed, by the unfortunate
Stuarts. The reasoning of Charles, and of all his apologists, runs
thus:--"What new grievance does the nation suffer? What has the King
done more than what Henry did? more than what Elizabeth did? Did the
people ever enjoy more freedom than at present? Did they ever enjoy so
much freedom?" But what would a wise and honest counsellor, if Charles
had been so happy as to possess such a counsellor, have replied to
arguments like these? He would have said, "Sir, I acknowledge that the
people were never more free than under your government. I acknowledge
that those who talk of restoring the old Constitution of England use
an improper expression. I acknowledge that there has been a constant
improvement during those very years during which many persons imagine
that there has been a constant deterioration. But, though there has been
no change in the government for the worse, there has been a change in
the public mind which produces exactly the same effect which would
be produced by a change in the government for the worse. Perhaps this
change in the public mind is to be regretted. But no matter; you cannot
reverse it. You cannot undo all that eighty eventful years have done.
You cannot transform the Englishmen of 1640 into the Englishmen of 1560.
It may be that the simple loyalty of our fathers was preferable to that
inquiring, censuring, resisting spirit which is now abroad. It may be
that the times when men paid their benevolences cheerfully were better
times than these, when a gentleman goes before the Exchequer Chamber to
resist an assessment of twenty shillings. And so it may be that infancy
is a happier time than manhood, and manhood than old age. But God has
decreed that old age shall succeed to manhood, and manhood to infancy.
Even so have societies their law of growth. As their strength becomes
greater, as their experience becomes more extensive, you can no longer
confine them within the swaddling bands, or lull them in the cradles, or
amuse them with the rattles, or terrify them with the bugbears of their
infancy. I do not say that they are better or happier than they were;
but this I say, that they are different from what they were, that you
cannot again make them what they were, and that you cannot safely treat
them as if they continued to be what they were." This was the advice
which a wise and honest Minister would have given to Charles the First.
These were the principles on which that unhappy prince should have
acted. But no. He would govern, I do not say ill, I do not say
tyrannically; I only say this; he would govern the men of the
seventeenth century as if they had been the men of the sixteenth
century; and therefore it was, that all his talents and all his virtues
did not save him from unpopularity, from civil war, from a prison, from
a bar, from a scaffold. These things are written for our instruction.
Another great intellectual revolution has taken place; our lot has
been cast on a time analogous, in many respects, to the time which
immediately preceded the meeting of the Long Parliament. There is
a change in society. There must be a corresponding change in the
government. We are not, we cannot, in the nature of things, be, what our
fathers were. We are no more like the men of the American war, or the
men of the gagging bills, than the men who cried "privilege" round the
coach of Charles the First were like the men who changed their religion
once a year at the bidding of Henry the Eighth. That there is such a
change, I can no more doubt than I can doubt that we have more power
looms, more steam engines, more gas lights, than our ancestors. That
there is such a change, the Minister will surely find who shall attempt
to fit the yoke of Mr Pitt to the necks of the Englishmen of the
nineteenth century. What then can you do to bring back those times
when the constitution of this House was an object of veneration to the
people? Even as much as Strafford and Laud could do to bring back the
days of the Tudors; as much as Bonner and Gardiner could do to bring
back the days of Hildebrand; as much as Villele and Polignac could do
to bring back the days of Louis the Fourteenth. You may make the change
tedious; you may make it violent; you may--God in his mercy forbid!--you
may make it bloody; but avert it you cannot. Agitations of the public
mind, so deep and so long continued as those which we have witnessed, do
not end in nothing. In peace or in convulsion, by the law, or in spite
of the law, through the Parliament, or over the Parliament, Reform must
be carried. Therefore be content to guide that movement which you cannot
stop. Fling wide the gates to that force which else will enter through
the breach. Then will it still be, as it has hitherto been, the peculiar
glory of our Constitution that, though not exempt from the decay which
is wrought by the vicissitudes of fortune, and the lapse of time, in all
the proudest works of human power and wisdom, it yet contains within
it the means of self-reparation. Then will England add to her manifold
titles of glory this, the noblest and the purest of all; that every
blessing which other nations have been forced to seek, and have too
often sought in vain, by means of violent and bloody revolutions, she
will have attained by a peaceful and a lawful Reform.
*****
ANATOMY BILL. (FEBRUARY 27, 1832) A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF
COMMONS ON THE 27TH OF FEBRUARY, 1832.
On Monday, the twenty-seventh of February, 1832, the House took into
consideration the report of the Committee on Mr Warburton's Anatomy
Bill. Mr Henry Hunt attacked that bill with great asperity. In reply to
him the following Speech was made.
Sir, I cannot, even at this late hour of the night, refrain from saying
two or three words. Most of the observations of the honourable Member
for Preston I pass by, as undeserving of any answer before an audience
like this. But on one part of his speech I must make a few remarks. We
are, he says, making a law to benefit the rich, at the expense of the
poor. Sir, the fact is the direct reverse. This is a bill which tends
especially to the benefit of the poor. What are the evils against which
we are attempting to make provision? Two especially; that is to say, the
practice of Burking, and bad surgery. Now to both these the poor alone
are exposed. What man, in our rank of life, runs the smallest risk of
being Burked? That a man has property, that he has connections, that he
is likely to be missed and sought for, are circumstances which secure
him against the Burker. It is curious to observe the difference between
murders of this kind and other murders. An ordinary murder hides the
body, and disposes of the property. Bishop and Williams dig holes and
bury the property, and expose the body to sale. The more wretched, the
more lonely, any human being may be, the more desirable prey is he to
these wretches. It is the man, the mere naked man, that they pursue.
Again, as to bad surgery; this is, of all evils, the evil by which the
rich suffer least, and the poor most. If we could do all that in the
opinion of the Member for Preston ought to be done, if we could destroy
the English school of anatomy, if we could force every student of
medical science to go to the expense of a foreign education, on whom
would the bad consequences fall? On the rich? Not at all. As long as
there is in France, in Italy, in Germany, a single surgeon of eminent
skill, a single surgeon who is, to use the phrase of the member for
Preston, addicted to dissection, that surgeon will be in attendance
whenever an English nobleman is to be cut for the stone. The higher
orders in England will always be able to procure the best medical
assistance. Who suffers by the bad state of the Russian school of
surgery? The Emperor Nicholas? By no means. The whole evil falls on the
peasantry. If the education of a surgeon should become very extensive,
if the fees of surgeons should consequently rise, if the supply of
regular surgeons should diminish, the sufferers would be, not the
rich, but the poor in our country villages, who would again be left to
mountebanks, and barbers, and old women, and charms and quack medicines.
The honourable gentleman talks of sacrificing the interests of humanity
to the interests of science, as if this were a question about the
squaring of the circle, or the transit of Venus. This is not a mere
question of science: it is not the unprofitable exercise of an ingenious
mind: it is a question between health and sickness, between ease and
torment, between life and death. Does the honourable gentleman know from
what cruel sufferings the improvement of surgical science has rescued
our species? I will tell him one story, the first that comes into
my head. He may have heard of Leopold, Duke of Austria, the same who
imprisoned our Richard Coeur-de-Lion. Leopold's horse fell under him,
and crushed his leg. The surgeons said that the limb must be amputated;
but none of them knew how to amputate it. Leopold, in his agony, laid a
hatchet on his thigh, and ordered his servant to strike with a mallet.
The leg was cut off, and the Duke died of the gush of blood. Such was
the end of that powerful prince. Why, there is not now a bricklayer who
falls from a ladder in England, who cannot obtain surgical assistance,
infinitely superior to that which the sovereign of Austria could command
in the twelfth century. I think this a bill which tends to the good
of the people, and which tends especially to the good of the poor.
Therefore I support it. If it is unpopular, I am sorry for it. But
I shall cheerfully take my share of its unpopularity. For such, I am
convinced, ought to be the conduct of one whose object it is, not to
flatter the people, but to serve them.
*****
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. (FEBRUARY 28, 1832) A SPEECH DELIVERED IN A
COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON THE 28TH OF FEBRUARY, 1832.
On Tuesday, the twenty-eighth of February, 1832, in the Committee on the
Bill to amend the representation of the people in England and Wales,
the question was put, "That the Tower Hamlets, Middlesex, stand part of
Schedule C." The opponents of the Bill mustered their whole strength on
this occasion, and were joined by some members who had voted with the
Government on the second reading. The question was carried, however, by
316 votes to 236. The following Speech was made in reply to the Marquess
of Chandos and Sir Edward Sugden, who, on very different grounds,
objected to any increase in the number of metropolitan members.
Mr Bernal,--I have spoken so often on the question of Parliamentary
Reform, that I am very unwilling to occupy the time of the Committee.
But the importance of the amendment proposed by the noble Marquess, and
the peculiar circumstances in which we are placed to-night, make me so
anxious that I cannot remain silent.
In this debate, as in every other debate, our first object should be to
ascertain on which side the burden of the proof lies. Now, it seems to
me quite clear that the burden of the proof lies on those who support
the amendment. I am entitled to take it for granted that it is right and
wise to give representatives to some wealthy and populous places which
have hitherto been unrepresented. To this extent, at least, we all,
with scarcely an exception, now profess ourselves Reformers. There is,
indeed, a great party which still objects to the disfranchising even
of the smallest boroughs. But all the most distinguished chiefs of that
party have, here and elsewhere, admitted that the elective franchise
ought to be given to some great towns which have risen into importance
since our representative system took its present form. If this be so, on
what ground can it be contended that these metropolitan districts ought
not to be represented? Are they inferior in importance to the other
places to which we are all prepared to give members? I use the word
importance with perfect confidence: for, though in our recent debates
there has been some dispute as to the standard by which the importance
of towns is to be measured, there is no room for dispute here.
Here, take what standard you will, the result will be the same. Take
population: take the rental: take the number of ten pound houses: take
the amount of the assessed taxes: take any test in short: take any
number of tests, and combine those tests in any of the ingenious ways
which men of science have suggested: multiply: divide: subtract: add:
try squares or cubes: try square roots or cube roots: you will never be
able to find a pretext for excluding these districts from Schedule C.
If, then, it be acknowledged that the franchise ought to be given
to important places which are at present unrepresented, and if it be
acknowledged that these districts are in importance not inferior to any
place which is at present unrepresented, you are bound to give us strong
reasons for withholding the franchise from these districts.
The honourable and learned gentleman (Sir E. Sugden.) has tried to give
such reasons; and, in doing so, he has completely refuted the whole
speech of the noble Marquess, with whom he means to divide. (The
Marquess of Chandos.) The truth is that the noble Marquess and the
honourable and learned gentleman, though they agree in their votes, do
not at all agree in their forebodings or in their ulterior intentions.
The honourable and learned gentleman thinks it dangerous to increase the
number of metropolitan voters. The noble Lord is perfectly willing to
increase the number of metropolitan voters, and objects only to any
increase in the number of metropolitan members. "Will you," says the
honourable and learned gentleman, "be so rash, so insane, as to create
constituent bodies of twenty or thirty thousand electors?" "Yes," says
the noble Marquess, "and much more than that. I will create constituent
bodies of forty thousand, sixty thousand, a hundred thousand. I will add
Marylebone to Westminster. I will add Lambeth to Southwark. I will add
Finsbury and the Tower Hamlets to the City." The noble Marquess, it
is clear, is not afraid of the excitement which may be produced by the
polling of immense multitudes. Of what then is he afraid? Simply of
eight members: nay, of six members: for he is willing, he tells us, to
add two members to the two who already sit for Middlesex, and who may
be considered as metropolitan members. Are six members, then, so
formidable? I could mention a single peer who now sends more than six
members to the House. But, says the noble Marquess, the members for
the metropolitan districts will be called to a strict account by their
constituents: they will be mere delegates: they will be forced to speak,
not their own sense, but the sense of the capital. I will answer for
it, Sir, that they will not be called to a stricter account than those
gentlemen who are nominated by some great proprietors of boroughs. Is
it not notorious that those who represent it as in the highest degree
pernicious and degrading that a public man should be called to account
by a great city which has intrusted its dearest interests to his care,
do nevertheless think that he is bound by the most sacred ties of
honour to vote according to the wishes of his patron or to apply for the
Chiltern Hundreds? It is a bad thing, I fully admit, that a Member of
Parliament should be a mere delegate. But it is not worse that he should
be the delegate of a hundred thousand people than of one too powerful
individual. What a perverse, what an inconsistent spirit is this; too
proud to bend to the wishes of a nation, yet ready to lick the dust at
the feet of a patron! And how is it proved that a member for Lambeth
or Finsbury will be under a more servile awe of his constituents than
a member for Leicester, or a member for Leicestershire, or a member
for the University of Oxford? Is it not perfectly notorious that many
members voted, year after year, against Catholic Emancipation, simply
because they knew that, if they voted otherwise, they would lose their
seats? No doubt this is an evil. But it is an evil which will exist in
some form or other as long as human nature is the same, as long as
there are men so low-minded as to prefer the gratification of a vulgar
ambition to the approbation of their conscience and the welfare of their
country. Construct your representative system as you will, these men
will always be sycophants. If you give power to Marylebone, they will
fawn on the householders of Marylebone. If you leave power to Gatton,
they will fawn on the proprietor of Gatton. I can see no reason for
believing that their baseness will be more mischievous in the former
case than in the latter.
But, it is said, the power of this huge capital is even now dangerously
great; and will you increase that power? Now, Sir, I am far from denying
that the power of London is, in some sense, dangerously great; but I
altogether deny that the danger will be increased by this bill. It has
always been found that a hundred thousand people congregated close to
the seat of government exercise a greater influence on public affairs
than five hundred thousand dispersed over a remote province. But this
influence is not proportioned to the number of representatives chosen by
the capital. This influence is felt at present, though the greater part
of the capital is unrepresented. This influence is felt in countries
where there is no representative system at all. Indeed, this influence
is nowhere so great as under despotic governments. I need not remind the
Committee that the Caesars, while ruling by the sword, while putting
to death without a trial every senator, every magistrate, who incurred
their displeasure, yet found it necessary to keep the populace of the
imperial city in good humour by distributions of corn and shows of wild
beasts. Every country, from Britain to Egypt, was squeezed for the means
of filling the granaries and adorning the theatres of Rome. On more than
one occasion, long after the Cortes of Castile had become a mere name,
the rabble of Madrid assembled before the royal palace, forced their
King, their absolute King, to appear in the balcony, and exacted from
him a promise that he would dismiss an obnoxious minister. It was in
this way that Charles the Second was forced to part with Oropesa, and
that Charles the Third was forced to part with Squillaci. If there is
any country in the world where pure despotism exists, that country is
Turkey; and yet there is no country in the world where the inhabitants
of the capital are so much dreaded by the government. The Sultan, who
stands in awe of nothing else, stands in awe of the turbulent populace,
which may, at any moment, besiege him in his Seraglio. As soon as
Constantinople is up, everything is conceded. The unpopular edict is
recalled. The unpopular vizier is beheaded. This sort of power has
nothing to do with representation. It depends on physical force and
on vicinity. You do not propose to take this sort of power away from
London. Indeed, you cannot take it away. Nothing can take it away but an
earthquake more terrible than that of Lisbon, or a fire more destructive
than that of 1666. Law can do nothing against this description of power;
for it is a power which is formidable only when law has ceased to exist.
While the reign of law continues, eight votes in a House of six hundred
and fifty-eight Members will hardly do much harm. When the reign of law
is at an end, and the reign of violence commences, the importance of a
million and a half of people, all collected within a walk of the Palace,
of the Parliament House, of the Bank, of the Courts of Justice, will not
be measured by eight or by eighty votes. See, then, what you are doing.
That power which is not dangerous you refuse to London. That power which
is dangerous you leave undiminished; nay, you make it more dangerous
still. For by refusing to let eight or nine hundred thousand people
express their opinions and wishes in a legal and constitutional way, you
increase the risk of disaffection and of tumult. It is not necessary to
have recourse to the speeches or writings of democrats to show that
a represented district is far more likely to be turbulent than an
unrepresented district. Mr Burke, surely not a rash innovator, not
a flatterer of the multitude, described long ago in this place
with admirable eloquence the effect produced by the law which gave
representative institutions to the rebellious mountaineers of Wales.
That law, he said, had been to an agitated nation what the twin stars
celebrated by Horace were to a stormy sea; the wind had fallen; the
clouds had dispersed; the threatening waves had sunk to rest. I have
mentioned the commotions of Madrid and Constantinople. Why is it that
the population of unrepresented London, though physically far more
powerful than the population of Madrid or of Constantinople, has been
far more peaceable? Why have we never seen the inhabitants of the
metropolis besiege St James's, or force their way riotously into this
House? Why, but because they have other means of giving vent to their
feelings, because they enjoy the liberty of unlicensed printing, and the
liberty of holding public meetings. Just as the people of unrepresented
London are more orderly than the people of Constantinople and Madrid, so
will the people of represented London be more orderly than the people of
unrepresented London.
Surely, Sir, nothing can be more absurd than to withhold legal power
from a portion of the community because that portion of the community
possesses natural power. Yet that is precisely what the noble Marquess
would have us do. In all ages a chief cause of the intestine disorders
of states has been that the natural distribution of power and the legal
distribution of power have not corresponded with each other. This is
no newly discovered truth. It was well known to Aristotle more than two
thousand years ago. It is illustrated by every part of ancient and of
modern history, and eminently by the history of England during the last
few months. Our country has been in serious danger; and why? Because
a representative system, framed to suit the England of the thirteenth
century, did not suit the England of the nineteenth century; because an
old wall, the last relique of a departed city, retained the privileges
of that city, while great towns, celebrated all over the world for
wealth and intelligence, had no more share in the government than when
they were still hamlets. The object of this bill is to correct those
monstrous disproportions, and to bring the legal order of society into
something like harmony with the natural order. What, then, can be more
inconsistent with the fundamental principle of the bill than to exclude
any district from a share in the representation, for no reason but
because that district is, and must always be, one of great importance?
This bill was meant to reconcile and unite. Will you frame it in such a
manner that it must inevitably produce irritation and discord? This bill
was meant to be final in the only rational sense of the word final. Will
you frame it in such a way that it must inevitably be shortlived? Is it
to be the first business of the first reformed House of Commons to pass
a new Reform Bill? Gentlemen opposite have often predicted that the
settlement which we are making will not be permanent; and they are now
taking the surest way to accomplish their own prediction. I agree with
them in disliking change merely as change. I would bear with many
things which are indefensible in theory, nay, with some things which are
grievous in practice, rather than venture on a change in the composition
of Parliament. But when such a change is necessary,--and that such a
change is now necessary is admitted by men of all parties,--then I hold
that it ought to be full and effectual. A great crisis may be followed
by the complete restoration of health. But no constitution will bear
perpetual tampering. If the noble Marquess's amendment should unhappily
be carried, it is morally certain that the immense population of
Finsbury, of Marylebone, of Lambeth, of the Tower Hamlets, will,
importunately and clamorously, demand redress from the reformed
Parliament. That Parliament, you tell us, will be much more
democratically inclined than the Parliaments of past times. If so, how
can you expect that it will resist the urgent demands of a million of
people close to its door? These eight seats will be given. More than
eight seats will be given. The whole question of Reform will be opened
again; and the blame will rest on those who will, by mutilating this
great law in an essential part, cause hundreds of thousands who now
regard it as a boon to regard it as an outrage.
Sir, our word is pledged. Let us remember the solemn promise which we
gave to the nation last October at a perilous conjuncture. That promise
was that we would stand firmly by the principles and leading provisions
of the Reform Bill. Our sincerity is now brought to the test. One of the
leading provisions of the bill is in danger. The question is, not merely
whether these districts shall be represented, but whether we will keep
the faith which we plighted to our countrymen. Let us be firm. Let us
make no concession to those who, having in vain tried to throw the bill
out, are now trying to fritter it away. An attempt has been made to
induce the Irish members to vote against the government. It has been
hinted that, perhaps, some of the seats taken from the metropolis may be
given to Ireland. Our Irish friends will, I doubt not, remember that
the very persons who offer this bribe exerted themselves not long ago
to raise a cry against the proposition to give additional members to
Belfast, Limerick, Waterford, and Galway. The truth is that our enemies
wish only to divide us, and care not by what means. One day they try
to excite jealousy among the English by asserting that the plan of the
government is too favourable to Ireland. Next day they try to bribe the
Irish to desert us, by promising to give something to Ireland at the
expense of England. Let us disappoint these cunning men. Let us, from
whatever part of the United Kingdom we come, be true to each other and
to the good cause. We have the confidence of our country. We have justly
earned it. For God's sake let us not throw it away. Other occasions may
arise on which honest Reformers may fairly take different sides. But
to-night he that is not with us is against us.
*****
REPEAL OF THE UNION WITH IRELAND. (FEBRUARY 6, 1833) A SPEECH DELIVERED
IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON THE 6TH OF FEBRUARY 1833.
On the twenty-ninth of January 1833, the first Parliament elected under
the Reform Act of 1832 met at Westminster. On the fifth of February,
King William the Fourth made a speech from the throne, in which he
expressed his hope that the Houses would entrust him with such powers as
might be necessary for maintaining order in Ireland and for preserving
and strengthening the union between that country and Great Britain.
An Address, assuring His Majesty of the concurrence and support of the
Commons, was moved by Lord Ormelie and seconded by Mr John Marshall.
Mr O'Connell opposed the Address, and moved, as an amendment, that the
House should resolve itself into a Committee. After a discussion of
four nights the amendment was rejected by 428 votes to 40. On the second
night of the debate the following Speech was made.
Last night, Sir, I thought that it would not be necessary for me to take
any part in the present debate: but the appeal which has this evening
been made to me by my honourable friend the Member for Lincoln (Mr
Edward Lytton Bulwer.) has forced me to rise. I will, however, postpone
the few words which I have to say in defence of my own consistency, till
I have expressed my opinion on the much more important subject which is
before the House.
My honourable friend tells us that we are now called upon to make a
choice between two modes of pacifying Ireland; that the government
recommends coercion; that the honourable and learned Member for Dublin
(Mr O'Connell.) recommends redress; and that it is our duty to try the
effect of redress before we have recourse to coercion. The antithesis is
framed with all the ingenuity which is characteristic of my honourable
friend's style; but I cannot help thinking that, on this occasion,
his ingenuity has imposed on himself, and that he has not sufficiently
considered the meaning of the pointed phrase which he used with so much
effect. Redress is no doubt a very well sounding word. What can be more
reasonable than to ask for redress? What more unjust than to refuse
redress? But my honourable friend will perceive, on reflection, that,
though he and the honourable and learned Member for Dublin agree in
pronouncing the word redress, they agree in nothing else. They utter the
same sound; but they attach to it two diametrically opposite meanings.
The honourable and learned Member for Dublin means by redress simply
the Repeal of the Union. Now, to the Repeal of the Union my honourable
friend the Member for Lincoln is decidedly adverse. When we get at his
real meaning, we find that he is just as unwilling as we are to give the
redress which the honourable and learned Member for Dublin demands. Only
a small minority of the House will, I hope, and believe, vote with that
honourable and learned member; but the minority which thinks with him
will be very much smaller.
We have, indeed, been told by some gentlemen, who are not themselves
repealers, that the question of Repeal deserves a much more serious
consideration than it has yet received. Repeal, they say, is an object
on which millions have, however unwisely, set their hearts; and men
who speak in the name of millions are not to be coughed down or sneered
down. That which a suffering nation regards, rightly or wrongly, as the
sole cure for all its distempers, ought not to be treated with levity,
but to be the subject of full and solemn debate. All this, Sir, is most
true: but I am surprised that this lecture should have been read to
us who sit on your right. It would, I apprehend, have been with more
propriety addressed to a different quarter. Whose fault is it that we
have not yet had, and that there is no prospect of our having, this full
and solemn debate? Is it the fault of His Majesty's Ministers? Have
not they framed the Speech which their Royal Master delivered from the
throne, in such a manner as to invite the grave and searching discussion
of the question of Repeal? and has not the invitation been declined? Is
it not fresh in our recollection that the honourable and learned Member
for Dublin spoke two hours, perhaps three hours,--nobody keeps accurate
account of time while he speaks,--but two or three hours without
venturing to join issue with us on this subject? In truth, he suffered
judgment to go against him by default. We, on this side of the House,
did our best to provoke him to the conflict. We called on him to
maintain here those doctrines which he had proclaimed elsewhere with so
much vehemence, and, I am sorry to be forced to add, with a scurrility
unworthy of his parts and eloquence. Never was a challenge more fairly
given: but it was not accepted. The great champion of Repeal would not
lift our glove. He shrank back; he skulked away; not, assuredly, from
distrust of his powers, which have never been more vigorously exerted
than in this debate, but evidently from distrust of his cause. I have
seldom heard so able a speech as his: I certainly never heard a speech
so evasive. From the beginning to the end he studiously avoided saying
a single word tending to raise a discussion about that Repeal which, in
other places, he constantly affirms to be the sole panacea for all the
evils by which his country is afflicted. Nor is this all. Yesterday
night he placed on our order-book not less than fourteen notices; and
of those notices not a single one had any reference to the Union between
Great Britain and Ireland. It is therefore evident to me, not only that
the honourable and learned gentleman is not now prepared to debate the
question in this House, but that he has no intention of debating it in
this House at all. He keeps it, and prudently keeps it, for audiences of
a very different kind. I am therefore, I repeat, surprised to hear
the Government accused of avoiding the discussion of this subject. Why
should we avoid a battle in which
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