admitted that the appeals (chiefly from Scotland) poured in very fast; and, in fact, the very good of decision brought some evil along with it, as the delay formerly attendant upon appeals had deterred many persons from bringing them, so parties were now encouraged to prosecute them from the expedition with which they were arranged. The whole number of appeals unheard a

mounted to 101; and in no other branch of Chancery business did there remain any arrear worth naming.

Mr Taylor stated in reply, that what he had advanced, remained unanswered, and that he would, year after year, take the sense of the House upon the subject, if he should divide but two. The motion was then negatived by 108

votes to 51.

VOL. XIV. PART I.

M

FOR several years back, the subject of Parliamentary Reform had, in some measure, "fallen into the sere and yel-, low leaf;" and like all matters which have been frequently discussed to little purpose, had not only become somewhat stale and threadbare, but had been regarded by its abettors and partisans as utterly hopeless and unattainable, while so many interests and feelings were arrayed in opposition to any modification of the present system. It is true that proofs upon proofs had been accumulated to establish the existence of venality and corruption in electors and representatives; that, in some flagrant instances, as in Grampound, these proofs had been so clear as to lead to the disfranchisement of the borough, and the conviction and punishment of the candidates; and that seats in Parliament were as notoriously bought and sold as cattle in Smithfield market: but still it was contended, that these causes of individual corruption furnished no argument against the practical result of

the whole system; that the influence of wealth in the election of representatives could not be destroyed without at the same time infringing the right of property itself; that that influence was as prevalent and unquestionable in the return of opposition as of ministerial members; that even the rotten boroughs were not without their advantages, as through that channel men of great genius and talents, but without political influence or connections, were able to find their way into Parliament; and that, upon the whole, the House of Commons, as at present constituted, contained a fair and sufficient representation of all the classes and interests in the kingdom. In addition to these considerations, was appended the usual caveat against rash and experimental innovation on established institutions; against hazarding the certain and known advantages of the present system, for the mere problematical results of abstract speculation; against the absurdity, in short, of not acquiescing impli

tors."

citly in the enjoyment of that modicum of political power and privilege allotted for us, by the-never-to-be-called-in-question" wisdom of our ancesThese arguments, on both sides, were nearly as good as the case admitted of; but in Parliament they produced no effect whatever. The advocates of reform laboured in vain to persuade men to extend the elective franchise, who had a strong interest in preserving untouched and entire the existing system; while the apologies in favour of that system were treated with contempt aud derision by those who could not believe it either criminal or dangerous to rectify errors, to reform abuses, to make that better which was said to be already good, and, above all, to give to the people, the ultimate origin of all power, a voice in the management of their own affairs, and a portion of political privilege and power in some degree commensurate with the improvements which had taken place in knowledge, wealth, and civilization, and with the vast increase in the population of these kingdoms. The partisans of the close system, however, had one manifest advantage in this struggle. They were united. They had a palpable, a tangible interest for which to contend. There were no conflicting opinions among them. They enjoyed the benefits of the present system; and they were satisfied. Their only task was to find out something plausible if not sound, ingenious if not just, to urge in opposition to the vigorous arguments of their opponents, to parry the homethrusts that were incessantly made at them, and, if possible, to preserve some hold of public opinion, and to administer an antidote with the poison which their opponents were constantly disseminating. The partisans of reform, on the other hand, were divided into numberless sects, and paralysed by conflicting creeds. It seems to be a law of nature, that all professors of the art

of curing diseases, whether physical or political, should never agree upon a common mode of treatment for any given malady, acute or chronic. Every one had his own theory, and his own nostrum deduced from it. There was no union of sentiment, nor cordial co-operation in action. Satisfied of the infallibilty of his own specific, each man thought only of persuading others to be of the same mind. Nobody thought of compromise or concession; the party was divided against itself; success was next to impossible. This conflict of opinion constituted the main strength of their adversaries, who knew how to avail themselves effectively of so decided an advantage. Public opinion wavered, or rather predominated in favour of the patrons of things as they are; and the subject of Parliamentary Reform consequently came to be considered rather as a theme for declamation, than a matter for liberal but cautious and salutary legislation.

By some such process as this, we would account for the neglect and indifference with which the subject of a reform in the Commons House of Parliament had been treated for some years past, both within and without doors. For one thing, the topic had been already discussed and nearly exhausted; little new remained to be said upon it; while itinerant demagogues and venders of political nostrums had brought it into discredit by their base alliance, and, above all, by representing it as the lancet of Sangrado, the cure for all the ills that afflicted the commonwealth. In the course of this session, however, a number of circumstances conspired to bestow upon this worn-out theme a new interest. Most men turn reformers in distress, and credulous on the score of remedies. In consequence of the depressed state of agriculture, meetings, as we have already seen, were almost every where held to petition Parliament to adopt measures for its

relief, and in not a few of these petitions, a reform in Parliament was recommended and prayed for as one of the means which were to restore protecting prices, and put an end to the ruinous glut of the market, occasioned solely by excessive production. The reformers, on a broader scale, caught the note, and petitions were poured into Parliament in consequence; the principal of which were from the counties of Middlesex, Devon, Norfolk, Suffolk, Bedford, Cambridge, Surrey, and Cornwall, and from a number of the great towns. Upon the strength of these petitions, Lord John Russell, on the 25th of April, moved, "that the present state of the representation of the people in Parliament requires the most serious consideration of this House;" and supported his resolution in a long and elaborate speech, in which, throwing aside all theories, and considering the House, as the House of Commons only, and its members, not as delegates of the various branches of the constitution, but as forming merely one branch, he attempted, by a copious induction of facts, and comparative statements, to prove, that the condition of the people had, in almost every respect, materially changed, while the change in the state of the representation had not been conformable to that in the state of the people, but of a very different and opposite tendency; a discrepancy which was evinced by the acts the House had done, and which never could have been sanctioned by the real representatives of the people. This was his fundamental position; and we shall now give an abstract of the induction by which it was illustrated.

It would not be denied, he said, that the people of England had undergone a considerable change during the last forty years. In the course of that period, the wealth of the country had been prodigiously increased. This was strikingly evinced by the fact, that, in the two last years of the war, L.270,000,000

had been expended; which showed the great wealth and resources of the people. Another cause of improvement was the great increase which had occurred of late years in our manufactures. From the year 1785 to 1792, the average amount of our exports of British manufactures was about L.13,000,000 a-year. From 1792 to 1799 it was L.17,000,000; but the exports of the year 1821 were stated to amount to L.40,000,000. When to this was added the still larger consumption of our manufactures at home, and when it was considered, that out of these L.40,000,000 our export of cotton goods amounted to L.23,000,000, our woollens and linens to L.7,000,000, it must be inferred, that a very large proportion of the inhabitants of the country subsisted by those manufactures. With this immense increase in manufactures and commerce, the dissemination of instruction, and the improvement in knowledge had advanced even in more than equal proportion, and knowledge had been diffused among our population by every channel. In further illustration of this point, he stated a number of particulars, tending to show the extent to which the dissemination of knowledge had been carried, by the immense multiplication of books of all kinds, which implied the existence of a corresponding demand for them. The greater attention now bestowed on the discussion of political subjects he inferred from the extraor dinary increase in the circulation of newspapers, of which no less than 23,600,000 were sold throughout the kingdom in the course of last year. Of these, the London daily papers sold above 11,000,000, the country papers above 7,000,000, and the weekly papers above 2,000,000. By a statement which he had procured, it appeared that the number of papers published in England, Scotland, Ireland, and the British Islands, was, in 1782, 79, in 1790, 146, and in 1821, 284; making an increase

since 1790 of 138, or nearly double in the space of thirty years.

Having made these statements to enable the House to judge of the vast increase of the wealth and importance of the country, and the rapid strides it had made in moral and political knowledge, the Noble Lord proceeded to the other branch of his subject, which was, to inquire whether the state of Parliament was so changed as to represent this increased importance of the middling, the manufacturing, and the commercial classes; and, after a detailed examination of the state of county and borough representation, he determined the question in the negative. Next, in order to prove that the votes given by the House of Commons, on certain great occasions, were not such as the real representatives of the people would have given, he produced two statements, one by Lord Milton, and another by himself, exhibiting a general view of the votes which had been given, within the last four or five years, relative to questions of economy and retrenchment.

According to Lord Milton, there were 33 boroughs, in each of which there were less than 1000 inhabitants; out of the members for those boroughs, 12 had voted against Ministers, 44 for them, and 10 were neutral. There were 35 boroughs, containing less than 2000 inhabitants each; of their members, 15 had voted against Ministers, 45 for them, and 8 were neutral. There were 76 boroughs, containing less than 5000 inhabitants; out of the members for them, 48 voted against Ministers, 93 for them, and 10 were neutral. There were 25 boroughs, containing from 5000 to 10,000 inhabitants each; out of the members for them, 22 voted against Ministers, 27 for them, and I was neutral. And in 31 boroughs, containing 10,000 inhabitants each and upwards, there were 38 members against Ministers, only 21 for them, and 5 neutral.

The Noble Lord's own calculation did not differ materially from that of Lord Milton. From the members of the boroughs under 500 inhabitants, there was one member in favour of reduction, and 19 against it. From the members of the boroughs containing from 500 to 1000 inhabitants, there were 12 for, and 33 against reduction. From the members of the boroughs containing more than 1000 and less than 2000 inhabitants, 17 were for, and 44 against reduction. From the members of the boroughs containing more than 2000, and less than 3000 inhabitants, 19 were for, and 46 against reduction. From the members for the boroughs containing 5000 inhabitants, there were 25 for, and 44 against reduction; and from those from the boroughs containing more than 5000 inhabitants, there were 66 for, and only 47 against reduction. The general result of this calculation showed, that the proportion in favour of Ministers diminished as the size of the places increased; for, combining the two calculations, the proportion was in the first instance as 19 to 1 in their favour; in the second, as 3 to 1; in the third, as 2 to 1; in the fourth, as 4 to 3; in the fifth, as 3 to 5; so that, in the last case, it was 5 to 3 against administration, and for retrenchment.

"Now, these are facts," said the Noble Lord, "which ought to convince the most credulous, that the small towns do not represent the interests of the people as well as the large towns. But, besides these facts, others have oc curred during this session of Parliament, which afford results equally striking. I shall take two questions which have been discussed in it, and which undoubtedly are of great public interest and importance; the one relates to the Salt Tax, the other to the office of Postmaster-General. Upon the Salt Tax the numbers were 169 in favour of its continuance, and 165 in support