be incompetent to the discharge of its high functions, which, having, after due deliberation, adopted a great public measure, should be frightened back into an acquiescence with the temporary excitement which might exist upon that measure out of doors.

66

Upon another great question which I have much at heart, I mean the Roman Catholic question, I have not the slightest doubt, that the House has run before the sense of the country; which is now, however, gradually coming up to us. I have no doubt, that in all our early votes on this most important question, we had not the country with us: but I am equally confident that the period is rapidly advancing, when the country will be convinced that the House of Commons has acted as they ought to have done. If on such questions as these questions before which almost all others sink into insignificance the House of Commons have been either against, or before, the opinions of the country, the proposition that the representative system is necessarily imperfect, because it does not give an immediate echo to the senItiments of the people, is surely not to be received without abundant qualification. On this ground, therefore, there is no foundation for the noble lord's motion; unless the free expression of an honest and conscientious opinion, when it may happen to differ from that of its constituents, be inconsistent with the duty and derogatory to the character of a representative assembly.

"If this House is adequate to the functions which really belong to it which functions are, not to exercise an undivided, supreme dominion, in the name of the

people, over the Crown and the other branch of the legislature but, checking the one and balancing the other, to watch over the people's rights, and to provide especially for the people's interests:if, I say, the House is adequate to the performance of these its legitimate functions, the mode of its composition appears to me a consideration of secondary importance. Persons may look with a critical and microscopic eye into bodies physical or moral, till doubts arise whether it is possible for them to perform their assigned functions. So, in considering too curiously the composition of this House, and the different processes through which it is composed-not those processes alone which are empha tically considered as pollution and corruption, but those also which rank among the noblest exercises of personal freedom-the canvasses, the conflicts, the controversies, and (what is inseparable from these) the vituperations, and excesses of popular election-a dissector of political constitutions might well be surprised to behold the product of such elements in an assemblyof which, whatever may be its other characteristics, no man will seriously deny, that it comprehends as much of intellectual ability and of moral integrity, as was ever brought together in the civilized world. Nay, to an unlearned spectator, undertaking for the first time an anatomical examination of the House of Commons, those parts of it which, according to theory, are its beauties, must appear most particularly its stains. For while the members returned for burgage-tenure seats, or through other obscure and noiseless modes of election, pass into the House of Commons unnoticed and uncri

ticised, their talents unquestioned, and their reputations unassailed; -the successful candidate of a popular election often comes there loaded with the imputation of every vice and crime that could unfit a man, not only for representing any class of persons, but for mixing with them as a member of society. The first effect of a reform which should convert all elections into popular ones, would probably be, to ensure a congregation of individuals, against every one of whom a respectable minority of his constituents would have pronounced sentence of condemnation. And if it be so very hard that there are now a great number of persons who do not directly exercise the elective franchise, and who are therefore represented by persons whom others have chosen for them-would this matter be much mended, when two-fifths of the people of England should be represented not only without their choice, but against their will; not only by individuals whom they had not selected, but by those whom they had declared utterly unworthy of their confidence?

"Again;—should we have no cause to lament the disfranchisement of those boroughs, which are not open to popular influence? How many of the gentlemen who sit opposite to me, the rarest talents of their party, owe their seats to the existence of such boroughs? When I consider the eminent qualities which distinguish, for instance, the representatives of Knaresborough, Winchelsea, Wareham, Higham-Ferrers, I never can consent to join in the reprobation cast upon a system, which fructifies in produce of so admirable a kind. No, Sir, if this House is not all that theory

could wish it, I would rather rest satisfied with its present state, than, by endeavouring to remedy some small defects, run the hazard of losing so much that is excellent. Old Sarum, and other boroughs, at which the finger of scorn is pointed, are not more under private patronage now, than at the periods the most glorious in our history. Some of them are still in the possession of the descendants of the same patrons who held them at the period of the Revolution. Yet in spite of Old Sarum, the Revolution was accomplished, and the house of Hanover seated on the throne. In spite of Old Sarum did I say? No: rather by the aid of Old Sarum and similar boroughs; for the House has heard it admitted by the noble mover himself, that if the House of Commons of that day had been a reformed House of Commons, the benefits of the Revolution would never have been obtained.”

If

Mr. Canning then contended, that all who wished for a reform of parliament must proceed upon one of two principles-either to construct it anew, or to bring it back to the state in which it existed at some former period. the latter branch of the alternative were adopted, he shewed that there was no date in our history, when the structure of the legislature coincided in any degree with the ideas of democracy none, at which every alleged abuse in the composition of the House of Commons was not as prevalent as at present; and to enliven this part of his subject, he quoted various curious instances of aristocratical interference in elections in the reigns of Henry VI., Edward IV., Elizabeth, Charles II., and William III. "Thus," said Mr.

Canning, "I have endeavoured to dispel the idle superstition, that there once existed in this country a House of Commons, in the construction of which the faults that are attributed to the present House of Commons, and attributed to it as a motive for inflicting upon itself its own destruction, did not équally exist and not only exist equally, but exist in wider extent and more undisguised enormity. I have been showing, that if the present House of Commons is to be destroyed for these faults, it has earned that fate not by degeneracy, but by imitation; that it would in such case expiate the misdeeds of its predecessors, instead of suffering for any that are peculiarly its own. I have been endeavouring to prove, that of the two options "do you mean to restore?or to construct anew?"-no reformer who has carefully examined the subject, can in sincerity answer otherwise than construct anew:"-for that to restore the times of purity of election-that is, of election free from the influence, and a preponderating in fluence too, of property, rank, station, and power, natural or acquired would be, to restore a state of things of which we can find no prototype, and to revert to times which in truth have never been.

"to

must come; if he consents to reform on principle. By reforming "on principle," I mean, reforming with a view not simply to the redress of any partial, practical grievance, but generally to theoretical improvement. I may add, that even on principle" his endeavours to reform will be utterly vain, if he insists upon the exclusion of influence, as an indispensable quality of his reformed constitution. Not in this country only, but in every country in which a popular elective assembly has formed part of the government, to exclude such influence from the elections, has been a task either not attempted, or attempted to no purpose. While we dam up one source of influence, a dozen others will open, in proportion as the progress of civilization, the exten sion of commerce, and a hundred other circumstances better understood than defined, contribute to shift and change, in their relative proportions, the prevailing interests of society. Whether the House of Commons in its present shape does not practically, though silently, accommodate itself to such changes, with a pliancy almost as faithful as the nicest artifice could contrive, is, in my opinion, I confess, a much more important consideration, than whether the component parts of the House might be arranged with neater symmetry, or distributed in more scientific proportions.

"That the proposition "to construct anew" is the much more formidable proposition of the two, is tacitly admitted by the very unwillingness which is shewn on all occasions to acknowledge it as the object of any motion for reform. Yet to that must the reformers come. To that, I venture to tell the noble lord-he, with all his caution and all his desire to avoid extravagance and exaggeration,

"Our lot is happily cast in the temperate zone of freedom: the clime best suited to the developement of the moral qualities of the human race; to the cultivation of their faculties, and to the security as well as the improvement of their virtues: a clime not exempt indeed from variations of the ele

ments, but variations which purify, while they agitate, the atmosphere that we breathe. Let us be sensible of the advantages, which it is our happiness to enjoy. Let us guard with pious gratitude the flame of genuine liberty, that fire from heaven, of which our constitution is the holy depository; and let us not, for the chance of rendering it more intense and more radiant, impair its purity or hazard its extinction!

"That the noble lord will carry his motion this evening, I have no fear; but with the talents which he has shown himself to possess, and with (I sincerely hope) a long and brilliant career of parliamentary distinction before him, he will, no doubt, renew his efforts hereafter. Although I presume not to expect that he will give any

weight to observations or warnings of mine, yet on this-probably the last, opportunity which I shall have, of raising my voice on the question of parliamentary reform, while I conjure the House to pause before it consents to adopt the proposition of the noble lord-I cannot help conjuring the noble lord himself, to pause before he again presses it upon the country. If, however, he shall persevere-and if his perseverance shall be successful-and if the results of that success shall be such as I cannot help apprehending-his be the triumph to have precipitated those results-be mine the consolation that to the utmost, and the latest of my power, I have opposed them."

After a short reply from the mover, the House divided; Ayes, 164;* Noes, 269. The strength

which the minority mustered on this occasion, gave them more rational hopes of ultimate, though remote triumph, than had been entertained for more than thirty years. A circumstance which added not a little to the exultation of the friends of reform, was, that they now saw in their ranks several young men, the heirs of great families, whose support would, by and by, prove an immense accession of force.

The question was not again brought forward formally, during the session: but it was in substance presented a second time to the attention of the House, by Mr. Brougham, who on the 24th of June, proposed a resolution "That the influence of the Crown is un

Pierce, H.

necessary to the maintenance of its due prerogatives, destructive of the independence of parliament, and inconsistent with the well government of the state." This resolution he introduced by a long speech, in the course of which he displayed his talents for irony and sarcasm, with singular brilliancy and success. Setting out from the year 1780, when the House of Commons had put on record an avowal of the undue influence of the Crown, he proceeded to show the increase of that influence, since that period, in the vast multiplication of our military, naval, and civil establishments; and the proofs of its operation in the uniform and servile compliance of the House of Commons with different

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Tavistock, marquis of
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