SECTION X.

AUTHORITIES FROM REFORMERS.

To be taxed without being represented, is contrary to the maxims of law, and the first principles of the constitution.-Chatham. The people of Britain have a right to an annual election of their representatives, and an equal representation, founded upon a higher authority than any act or acts of Parliament can confer.The late Marquis of Lansdown's Letter to the People of Wiltshire. That it is a high infringement upon the liberties and privileges of the Commons of Great Britain, for any Lord of Parliament, or any Lord Lieutenant of any county, to concern themselves in the election of members to serve for the Commons in Parliament.-Resolution of the Commons entered on the Journals at the Commencement of every Session.

That government alone is strong that has the hearts of the people; and will any man contend that we should not be likely to add strength to the State, if we were to extend the basis of popular representation? Would not a House of Commons, freely elected, and that was, in truth, the representation of the people, in supporting the administration of the Crown, be more likely to conciliate and to ensure the support of the people? If this be true in the abstract, it is certainly our peculiar duty to look for this support in this hour of difficulty.-Charles James Fox, 1797. No honest man can, according to the present system, i. e. the late system, continue Minister.-William Pitt, 1782,

No person who has an office or place of profit under the king, or who receives a pension from the Crown, should be capable of serving as a member of the House of Commons.-Act of Settlement, 12th and 13th William and Mary, § 7.

The congregation of hypocrites shall be desolate, and fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery: they conceive mischief, and bring forth vanity, and their belly prepareth deceit.-Job xv. 34, 35.

REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE AS IT WAS.

In the puerile debates of session 1830, on the East Retford Bill, Sir Robert Peel took up a sophism dropped by the late Mr Canning, namely, that however just and expedient a reform in the representation might be, still he should oppose it, since it would compromise the safety of

the monarchy. What an argument to address to the United Kingdom. Is the safety of the Crown and the Aristocracy to be put in competition with the wishes and welfare of twenty-four millions of people? or, if we include the population of the colonies and dependencies of the empire, with one hundred and fifty millions? The kingly office is only a trust for the public benefit, and the peerage is instituted for a similar purpose; and shall the prerogatives of these be made a pretext for withholding justice and happiness from such an assemblage of human beings? But we deny that either the Crown or Peerage would be compromised by parliamentary reform, between which, and a government of three orders, we cannot discern an inherent incompatibility. Every community must have a head we prefer a king to any other designation, and between the monarch and the commons, an intermediate body may be interposed, without deranging the harmony of the system, or erecting a barrier to popular rights. This intermediate body is the Peerage or Aristocracy, and ought to be a real aristocracy, consisting of the élite of society, not deriving their functions from the accident of birth, but chosen, like the judges, for life,-not, indeed, by the Crown, but the representatives of the people. Such innovations as these might compromise the corruptions of monarchy and aristocracy, they might involve a vast reduction in the civil list, and in the pensions and unearned salaries of the nobility; and it may be these Sir Robert contemplated; but the loss of them would not be greatly deplored by the people of Britain, so long as the substance of the regal office, and the legitimate functions of an upper chamber, were preserved inviolate.

Having despatched the last new argument against parliamentary reform, we shall proceed at once to the root of all evil the corrupt and defective state of the national representation, previous to the passing of the Reform Bills.

So much has been urged to shew the absurdity and mischievous tendency of the late constitution of the House of Commons, that it seems almost a work of supererogation to add any thing further on the subject. We will, however, make a few remarks on three leading positions, on which, we think, the Reformers are unanswerable. These positions are, first, That the House of Commons, as lately constituted, was unconstitutional and irrational; second,

That it has been productive of all the calamities under which the country now labours; and, lastly, that it was utterly impossible any great measure of retrenchment, or any other measure materially beneficial to the country, could be carried, while it remained unreformed. These points established, every one, not interested in the abuses of government, must see what a paramount necessity there was of renovation; that all other projects were "shadows vain," and that this was the only means by which the nuisance of oligarchical usurpation could be abated, and the condition of the people ameliorated.

To prove that the House of Commons was unconstitutional, it is sufficient to revert to the authorities placed at the head of this article. But it was not only unconstitutional, it was glaringly unequal and preposterous: it was founded on no rational principle of either population, intelligence, or property. There was Old Sarum, for instance. Of this borough nothing remains but a thornbush, yet it has a nominal bailiff and burgesses, and returned two members to the imperial parliament. Appleby was another burgage tenure-borough: here the right of voting was vested in some pig-stys, and it was these magnificent abodes which were represented in the "Great Council of the Nation," while Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, and Birmingham were excluded. Gatton consists of only six houses, and had but one voter; this voter united in his person the various functions of magistrate, churchwarden, surveyor of the high-ways, collector of taxes, appoints at his court leet the constable, and returned two members to represent him in the Commons' House. At Midhurst there was neither freeholder, property, nor inhabitant; and the whole business of returning two members was performed by the attorney of Lord Egremont. There would be no end of enumerating similar incongruities; but these must suffice to shew the absurdity of the late system in respect of population.

As to property it was not less indefensible. At Weymouth and Melcome Regis, voters possessing only the thirteen hundredth part of a six-penny freehold have been deemed eligible. At Horsham, voters possessing a house, or part of a house, paying only two-pence a-year, were entitled to vote for a member of parliament. But why, in returning county members, should the elective franchise

F

attach only to freehold property? Copy-hold property, since the abolition of the feudal tenures, is nearly as valuable a possession as freehold. But if property be the proper basis of representation, why not admit funded and personal property? or why not admit property vested in manufactures, navigation, and shipping? But the whole was an unanswerable absurdity. The crowning anomaly, however, still remains. ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-FOUR PEERS, persons whom we have seen, from one of our mottos, have no right to interfere or concern themselves in elections, did actually nominate 300 members; and that 187 more members, forming a majority, were nominated by government, and 123 private individuals.

Absurd as such a system was, the Edinburgh Review and some ingenious persons have attempted its defence. They contend that, notwithstanding its revolting incongruities, it produced much practical good, and that men of talent and virtue found their way into the house even under the late defective system. This was the common argument of corruptionists who affected to be rational and liberal, but we will soon shew that it was the most weak and puerile imaginable.

Granting that some four or half-dozen honest and clever men obtained seats in the house; we ask, did this render its constitution as it ought to be? Was it right that an assemblage, which ought to be a congregation of the wisdom and probity of the community, should only contain about one-hundredth part of men of real ability and good intentions? Persons of this description ought not to form an extremely small minority, they ought to form the majority; nay, the whole ought to be of this class. Certainly an assemblage, where the legislative power resides, ought to be composed of men above the average talent and integrity of society; it ought to be a filtration from the mass, and a concentration of all that is eminent in wisdom, integrity, and patriotism.

But of what service were half-a-dozen, a score, or even a hundred unexceptionable characters in an assembly of more than six hundred? They can neither prevent bad, nor carry good measures. Power there is neither in eloquence nor strength of reasoning, but in strength of voting; and unless they be superior in the number of votes, as well as in probity and intellect, they can render little ser

versa.

vice to the country. Unquestionably a few men of ability found their way into parliament through the means of boroughmongers. The fact is, such representative nominees partook of the character of their patrons: if the latter be enlightened and patriotic, so will the former; and vice But this only proves the veracity of the representative principle; it only proves that the representative body will always partake of the character of the constituency, whether peers or commoners, and demonstrates, unanswerably, that if the intelligence, property, and a majority of the people were represented, so would the public welfare preponderate.

Let us come to the second position, namely, that the calamities of the country have resulted from non-representation. Some have been hardy enough to assert that the same measures would have been pursued, and the situation of the country would have been nearly similar, had the government been vested in the people. They contend that the WAR-the fruitful source of calamity-in its commencement was popular. Allowing, for a moment, that the people were favourable to the war at the beginning, and continued so for some time afterward, yet we contend that even this originated in the state of the representation. The voice of reason and truth was stifled by the power of corruption. A panic was raised about property; the most ridiculous fears were excited about French liberty and French principles. Truth could no where make herself heard: all the outlets of information-the daily press, the periodical press, the bar, the pulpit, the senate-house-all were devoted to the Oligarchy: delusion and corruption triumphed ; and the friends of liberty and peace, who vainly endeavoured to expose the million of lies which inundated the country, were either banished, imprisoned, or expatriated.

Hence arose the pretended popularity of the revolutionary war. The exclusion of the people from the government, afforded to the Church and Aristocracy the means of silencing truth, and deluding and moulding the nation to their own ruinous purposes. On no other supposition is it possible to account for the system so long tolerated in this country; for the accumulation of a debt of 800 millions the degradation of one-tenth of the community into paupers the depreciation of the currency-and the growth