No More Learning

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.