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 tragi-comedy 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 the old feelings and the 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 their own ungovernable passions. Save the aristocracy, 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 regret, amidst the wreck of laws, the confusion of ranks, the spoliation of property, and the dissolution of social order.

PARLIAMENTARY REFORM.

JULY 5, 1831.

On the Second Reading of Lord John Russell's Parliamentary Reform Bill (England).

BEFORE I proceed to examine what may be termed the political arguments applicable to the question, I wish to notice one position which, if it were a sound one, I admit would be decisive against reform. That position is, that the elective franchise is property -as much property as the dividends of the fundholder, or the rents of the landowners. It must either be property or not property; and if it be property, to seize what belongs to the rich man in order to give it to the poor man would be to break up the very foundation of social order. I support this measure because I am convinced that the elective franchise is not property, and that the Bill ought not, therefore, to give compensation. Looking back to the earliest times, we shall find that, if the elective franchise be property, the present system is founded upon the most monstrous system of injustice and robbery-the great disfranchisement of the reign of Henry VI. was an act of unheard-of plunder, and the same remark will apply to the reform introduced by Oliver Cromwell. I will not argue on the merit or demerit of his system; but this I will say, that the best and wisest men of that and subsequent times never treated the elective franchise as property. I speak of all the debates in which Maynard and Hale partook under the vigorous Oliver, and his feeble successor. Sir Henry Vane said that it was a reform which the Long Parliament would have made had it lasted; and Lord Clarendon declared that it was a reform which the King ought to have made had he then come to the crown. Lord Clarendon, the most distinguished of Royalists, who leaned too

much to legal refinements on political questions, describes it as a reform which was fit to be made by a more warrantable method, and in better times. This, then, I say, is that more warrantable method-this that better time. What Cromwell attempted in a country lately convulsed by civil war, and still agitated by religious factions, we are now called upon to accomplish in a state of perfect peace, and under a prince whose title is as undisputed as his person is beloved. The only circumstances which, in the opinion of Lord Clarendon, were wanting in the reform of Cromwell, we find in the reform of William the Fourth. If the elective franchise were property, these, I contend, were most extensive and sweeping confiscations; but, for the sake of the great institution of property, for which all other institutions exist, which is the source of all knowledge and of all industry, I do most deeply lament to hear the sanctity that belongs to property claimed by that which is not property. If you mix political abuses with the institution of property, you must expect that property will contract the odium of political abuses; and people will imagine that there is no more immorality in taking away a man's estate than in disfranchising Old Sarum. If you bind them up that they may stand together, take care that they do not fall together. Many have before used the argument which we heard repeated last night, and which, if I mistake not, was originally employed by the right hon. baronet (Sir R. Peel). It is true, say they, that the Act of 1829 was the confiscation of the property of the forty-shilling freeholders of Ireland, and show us a case of necessity equally urgent, and we will vote for reform. Let them, however, beware how they set a precedent for the invasion of property on the ground of political convenience.

Considering the elective franchise as not property, we have only to discuss and decide this question-whether it is expedient at the present moment to touch it. The only argument I have heard on this subject was that used by a noble lord (Porchester) who spoke for the first time last night, and whom it gave me great pleasure to hear. The noble lord referred to the history of France, and particularly to recent events in that country; but I must question the noble lord's arguments as well as his

facts. I must deny that there was a fluctuation from a desire for a violent change from monarchical to a republican form of government, or that it was the fluctuation of the same party. Different opinions did, no doubt, prevail under different administrations-under De Cazes, Villele, and other administrations; but then these different opinions were expressed by Chambers differently constituted. The Chamber of Deputies of 1815 was differently constituted from that of 1819, and that of 1824 dif fered from both. The Chamber of 1827, indeed, though chosen in the same manner as the Chamber of 1824, took a very different course. But this difference of political feeling in the representative body, chosen under different circumstances, was an every-day case. When Queen Anne discharged her Whig Ministry, she succeeded also in getting a House of Commons the majority of which were Tories. On the accession of George I., another change took place, and a House of Commons, chiefly Whigs, were returned. In the same way a total change took place in the political character of the Commons in the election of 1784. I protest against the analogy drawn by the noble lord, and I deny that the cases of England and France are alike. I deny that we have had any parties here even remotely resembling the revolutionary and counter-revolutionary parties of France. I deny that there is any analogy between the two Houses of Peers. I regard the Chamber of Peers of France as an unfortunate experiment-as a kind of forced production-an exotic: there was nothing in the property or in the state of society in France which required such an institution; it had no root in the soil, and its decline and fall need not give the aristocracy of England the slightest alarm.

The principal and most plausible argument against the Reform Bill is this. Mark how rich, how great, how happy this country is, and has been; the admired of all men, and the envied of foreign nations. Will you, then, change a system which has produced so many and such lasting benefits? I am far from denying that England is a great and prosperous country. I am as far from denying that she owes much of her greatness and prosperity to the form of her government; but government and society are