What are the evils against which
we are attempting to make provision?
we are attempting to make provision?
Macaulay
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.
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.
