MR. BURKE'S SPEECH, ON PRESENTING TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, (ON THE 11th FEBRUARY, 1780,) A PLAN FOR THE BETTER SECURITY OF THE INDEPENDENCE AND THE ONOMICAL REFORMATION OF THE CIVIL & OTHER ESTABLISHMENTS. SPEECH. R. SPEAKER, I am in acquittal of my engagement to the House, in obedience strong and just requisition of my constituents, and, ded, in conformity to the unanimous wishes of the whole to submit to the wisdom of parliament, "A Plan of Reform Constitution of several Parts of the Public Economy." ve endeavoured that this plan should include, in its execuconsiderable reduction of improper expense; that it should a conversion of unprofitable titles into a productive estate; t should lead to, and indeed almost compel, a provident adration of such sums of public money as must remain under tionary trusts; that it should render the incurring debts e civil establishment (which must ultimately affect national th and national credit) so very difficult, as to become next practicable. what, I confess, was uppermost with me, what I bent the force of my mind to, was the reduction of that corrupt nce, which is itself the perennial spring of all prodigality, and disorder; which loads us, more than millions of debt; which away vigour from our arms, wisdom from our councils, and shadow of authority and credit from the most venerable parts constitution. -, I assure you, very solemnly, and with a very clear conce, that nothing in the world has led me to such an underg, but my zeal for the honour of this House, and the settled, ual, systematic affection I bear to the cause, and to the prinof government. enter perfectly into the nature and consequences of my attempt; I advance to it with a tremor that shakes me to the inmost of my frame. I feel that I engage in a business, in itself most acious, totally wide of the course of prudent conduct; and, I Jakale aduowan that can be imagined to the natural turn and temper of my own mind. I know, that all parsimony is of a quality approaching to unkindness; and that (on some person or other) every reform must operate as a sort of punishment. Indeed the whole class of the severe and restrictive virtues are at a market almost too high for humanity. What is worse, there are very few of those virtues which are not capable of being imitated, and even outdone, in many of their most striking effects, by the worst of vices. Malignity and envy will carve much more deeply, and finish much more sharply, in the work of retrenchment, than frugality and providence. I do not, therefore, wonder, that gentlemen have kept away from such a task, as well from good-nature as from prudence. Private feeling might, indeed, be overborne by legislative reason; and a man of a long-sighted and a strong-nerved humanity might bring himself, not so much to consider from whom he takes a superfluous enjoyment, as for whom in the end he may preserve the absolute necessaries of life. But it is much more easy to reconcile this measure to humanity, than to bring it to any agreement with prudence. I do not mean that little, selfish, pitiful, bastard thing, which sometimes goes by the name of a family in which it is not legitimate, and to which it is a disgrace;—I mean even that public and enlarged prudence, which, apprehensive of being disabled from rendering acceptable services to the world, withholds itself from those that are invidious. Gentlemen who are, with me, verging towards the decline of life, and are apt to form their ideas of kings from kings of former times, might dread the anger of a reigning prince ;-they who are more provident of the future, or by being young are more interested in it, might tremble at the resentment of the successor; they might see a long, dull, dreary, unvaried visto of despair and exclusion, for half a century, before them. This is no pleasant prospect at the outset of a political journey. Besides this, sir, the private enemies to be made in all attempts of this kind are innumerable; and their enmity will be the more bitter, and the more dangerous too, because a sense of dignity will oblige them to conceal the cause of their resentment. Very few men of great families, and extensive connexions, but will feel the smart of a cutting reform, in some close relation, some bosom friend, some pleasant acquaintance, some dear, protected dependent. Emolument is taken from some; patronage from others; objects of pursuit from all. Men, forced into an involuntary independence, will abhor the authors of a blessing which in their eyes has so very near a resemblance to a curse. When officers are removed, and the offices remain, you may set the gratitude of some against the anger of others; you may oppose the friends you oblige against the enemies you provoke. But services of the present sort create no attachments. The individual good felt in a public benefit is comparatively so small, comes round through such an involved labyrinth of intricate and tedious revolutions; whilst a present, personal detriment is so heavy, where it falls, and so instant in its operation, that the cold commendation of a public advantage never was, and never will be, a match for the quick sensibility of a private loss and you may depend upon it, sir, that when many people have an interest in railing, sooner or later, they will bring a considerable degree of unpopularity upon any measure. So that, for the present at least, the reformation will operate against the reformers; and revenge (as against them at the least) will produce all the effects of corruption. This, sir, is almost always the case, where the plan has complete success. But how stands the matter in the mere attempt? Nothing, you know, is more common than for men to wish, and call loudly too for a reformation, who, when it arrives, do by no means like the severity of its aspect. Reformation is one of those pieces which must be put at some distance in order to please. Its greatest favourers love it better in the abstract than in the substance. When any old prejudice of their own, or any interest that they value, is touched, they become scrupulous, they become captious, and every man has his separate exception. Some pluck out the black hairs, some the grey; one point must be given up to one; another point must be yielded to another; nothing is suffered to prevail upon its own principle; the whole is so frittered down and disjointed, that scarcely a trace of the original scheme remains! Thus, between the resistance of power, and the unsystematical process of popularity, the undertaker and the undertaking are both exposed, and the poor reformer is hissed off the stage both by friends and foes. Observe, sir, that the apology for my undertaking (an apology, which, though long, is no longer than necessary) is not grounded on my want of the fullest sense of the difficult and invidious nature of the task I undertake. I risk odium if I succeed, and contempt if I fail. My excuse must rest in my own and your conviction of the absolute, urgent necessity there is, that something of the kind should be done. If there is any sacrifice to be made, either of estimation or of fortune, the smallest is the best. Commanders-in-chief are not to be put upon the forlorn hope. But, indeed, it is necessary that the attempt should be made. It is necessary from our own political circumstances; it is necessary from the operations of the enemy; it is necessary from the demands of the people, whose desires, when they do not militate with the |