The Sun.
London, England, 1849-06-06 00:00:00

culative works and wild theories as their models of
government, that they would have taken the wise
course, and that we should not have seen the con-
vulsions acd tumults of the last and of the present year.
—(Hear, hear.) But it is quite different to hold that
opinion, and to say I am anxious to imitate the present
course of things on the continent. Nor do I think those
nations mean to proceed in that advance which they were
once so ready to profess.—(Hear, hear.) I see that with
.reepect to the Prussian Constitution of last year, for in-
stance, universal suffrage was to be the established rule.
We were left behind. Prussia had got to the top of the
tree, and we Here at the bottom, in darkness and igno-
rance. The Hon. Member said we should have followed.
" Don't let us be behind Prussia," said he; " there they
have got universal suffrage. Don't let England follow at
such a distance in her wake." But what have we seen
in the present year? By the Constitution which is now
adopt( d the electors arc divided into three classes—the
richest and smallest class, who pay most; another more
numerous plying smaller taxi's, and a third very numb-
sous class paying the smallest amount of taxes of all.
Are they all to have an equal right of suffrage? By no
means.— (Hear, tear.) The 500 of the first class are to
choose as many representatives to the Chamber at Berlin
as the third class of 5,000 persons. Whet is that but
another way of escaping from the evils of universal suf-
frage?—(Hear, hear.) Such a system would be totally
new in this country. For my own part, I would rather
obtain this full representation by the old and prescrip-
tive mode of the constitution. We have to see yet
whether this scheme will succeed. While we see such
a course of changes and transmutations in other coun-
tries, don't let us have the weakness, and childishness,
and folly, to imitate them till they have at least fixed on
something really good and legitimate. The lion. Gen-
tleman wishes us to imitate the nations of the continent.
I see, in the course of these changes, almost every great
capital has been, for a certain time, in a state of siege.—
(Cheers.) Paris,Vienna, Berlin, and Milan, have all been
in that condition. And what is the case in a state of siege?
No security for liberty, the press entirely crushed, ac-
cording to the will of some general commanding in the
town. If any newspaper appears, hostile to the ruling
power, or displeasing to the general in command, he goe'
off with some thousand or two of men able to enforce his
orders, and says, " The town is in a state of siege, this
newspaper shall not appear." Now, is that a state of
things we should envy or ought to imitate?—(Cheers.)
Well, we enjoy some freedom of the press; we, who
have each man every morning, according to his desire,
the opinions he chooses duly set before him. Ono
newspaper tells him the whole country is ruined by free
trade—another tells the reader the country is ruined
because we have not adopted universal suffrage. So
long as each man has this luxury—(A. laugh)—to read
what paper he chooses, all of them agreeing that the
country is ruined, in the first instance, and then having
different opinions from which he may please himself
as to the cause of that ruin, and to have his news-
paper presented to him at his breakfast table,
don't let us have this state of siege, of which we
have heard so much; and don't let us have seme general
at the Horse Guards depriving every man of his
newspaper.—(Cheers and laughter.) I would not have
any imitation of those nations on the continent which
are at present undergoing those transformations.
I trust that a rational and temperate liberty may be the
result of all their struggles. I am sorry to see their
efforts beset by so many difficulties, and accompanied by
so much bloodshed. But, so far as I see, there are but
three great countries which appear to stand, each ac-
cording to its constitution, in a firm and unmoved posi-
tion—the one where there is a complete democracy,
namely, the United States, where none of the people
wish to change their constitution—where it is evidently
suited to them; another in the opposite pole, the empire
of Russia, where the Jaw is fixed by the sole will of the
monarch, but where order is preserved and general se-
curity for life and property afforded under the strict
means adopted by the supreme authority; the third is
the constitutional monarchy of Great Britain; and, so
far as I can see, the people of this country are as much
attached to the constitutional monarchy as the people
of any country have ever been attached to the constitu-
tion of their own state. My belief is that it is the form
of government suited to this people. My belief is that
not a balance of forces, but a combination of powers
brought about by monarchy, aristocracy, and demo-
cracy acing together, produces as much of liberty and
happiness, as great a development of talent, as great en-
couragement in the practice of religious and moral duties
as any constitution the world ever exhibited has pro-
duced. My belief is, that if you adopted the scheme of
the Hon. Member for Montrose, as it is explained by
the Hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Bright), you
would risk all these blessings.—(Cheers.) Ido not
Oink that you, the House of Commons, chosen by uni-
versal suffrage in equal or nearly equal districts, would
lung have peace in this House; and, if you had peace
in this House by an overwhelming majority carrying
measures of a democratic nature, you could not keep
harmony with the other two powers of the state.—
(Hear,_ hear.) In framing and proposing the Re-
form Bill, as I stated at the commencement, what we
wished was to adapt the representation of this House to
the other powers of the state and keep it in harmony
widi the constitution. That object, I think, after seven-
teen years' trial, we have attained. We have obtained a
gradual progress of measures of reform without convul-
sion, without fear, or risk of bloodshed. If you go on
in the same course other measures will be adopted by
Parliament, other measures which, being in harmony
with the opinions of the people, will pass into a law in
a constitutional manner, and without interruption to that
constitution. I pray you, therefore, in the reline of that
constitution, net to adopt the mereure now before the
House, but to give it a decided negative. I believe y,
a ill be consulting the interests, aid I am firmly con-
vinced you will ago be consulting the wishes and opinioi
of the people.—(Great cheering.)..

Mr. OSBOR thought it could not have escaped the
observation ut the House and would not of the people,
that the opposition to the motion had ceme, with (no
-xeep ion, not from the hereditary en( mica of reform vn
the other side, 1 ut from the Gcnelemcn who now occu-
pied the Treasury bench. Theyl.a !client), d into power
on the credit of what had been done by the Hon. Membi r
"or Montrose, and those who Lad been stigmatised us
men of narrow and confined minds. It was time that
these who expressed so narrow and c_nfined ideas eboutd
be thrown over by those whom they stigmatised. The
most remarkable speech of the evening was that made
from the vicinity of the red box by the Hon. Member for
Cambridge. His whole argument was drawn, like a
al from the 10th of Ai ril. The Hon.
and c!assical Member when he referred to Aristotle for-
got that Aristotle had been persecuted by the Conserve-
tires of his day fur his new doctrines. The Hon.
Member's speech would have been more appropriate on
:he Miscellaneous Estimates. With respect to the speech
of Ihe Secretary for the Home Department there had,
-.ince the days of Julian the Apostate—(Laughter)—been
no such conversion recorded in history. It was true, he
staid, that in 1842 he had voted for the ballot,
but he had been c,enverted the other da3, by the argu-
ment of me Hon. Member for Oldham! Julian the
Apostate had assumes the garb of a m,enk at first, but
when he reached the Imperial throne, when he took his
place on the Treasury bench of his day, he voted against
Christianity. The speech of the Noble Lord was a me-
lancholy failure. He appealed to the Conservative fears
of the old womrre Not content with referring to the
state of foreign countries, he brought in the subject of
,he national debt. In the book on the English consti-
tution—that curious book wherein he said the constitu-
tion to which he now appealed had never been fixed—ho
sta'ed that the national debt had been the great cause of
the taxation of the country; and, therefore, that it des•
potism were to be established in England it must begin
by destroying the national debt, the people, possibly,
being willing to part with their liberties in exchange for
a diminished pressure of taxation. How did such views
tally with those now expressed by the Noble Lord?
The attempt to terrify those sensitive persons the fund-
holders was a weak invention of the enemy. The Whig
party were notoriously more aristocratic at all times,
more anti-liberal in reality than those who avowedly
opposed liberal principles. Ia the words of Swift, they
"Forget the dunghill where they grew,
And think themselves the Lord knows who"
—(A laugh.) The Noble Lord said—and the Right
Hon. Member for Tamworth cheered him at the time—
that half the capitals of Europe were in a state of siege.
Was the Noble Lord so satisfied with respect to his
own Government, was he so confident that he could
point to Ireland and say that at present it was not in a
state of siege? The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended;
the Alien Act had been renewed; and at this moment
there were actually more soldiers in Ireland than voters.
Was it not notorious that four prosecutions had been
instituted against one newspaper, and that the Attor-
ney-General could not possibly get a conviction against
Mr. Duffy? The more any plan was pressed, the more
did the Noble Lord, recede. He would propose none of
his own, and therefore Hop. Members were obliged to
vote for the plan of the Hon. Member for Montrose. If he
(Mr. Osborne) might offer any advice to those men of
narrow and contracted minds, the fres-traders, it would
be that they should make a stand, separate themselves
from that party which had proved itself an incubus on
the country, and take the position which their talents
would command. The Noble Lord would be left to de-
claim to empty benches, while they were carried into
power on the shoulders of the people.—(Divide, divide.)
Mr. P. W. WOOD rose amidst loud cries of " Divide,"
and observed, that Hon. Gentlemen who evinced so much
impatience might be satisfied in not having had much of
their time consumed on previous occasions upon ques-
tions of reform. He was happy to see that her Majesty's
Government had considered the present subject worthy
of discussion. It was said that there were no petitions
in favour of the proposed measure; but that circumstance
could not ignore the existence of 5,000,000 or
6,000,000 of uv.enfranchisrd Englishmen, whose feelings
were too sensitive to be indifferent to contemptuous con-
duct, and whose minds were far too acute to take
sneers for arguments.—(Cheers.) Nobody had gr,p-
pled with the motion; but the artifice which bad ben
resorted to both by the Noble Lord and by the Right
Hon. Gentleman (Sir G. Grey) was to assume that
motion to be identical with the one brought forward on
a termer occasion by the Hon. Member fur N*ltingliam
(Mr. F. O'Connor). But the two measures were dia-
metrically opposed to each other. It was curious enough
that in the debate on the Triennial Bill iu 1792—which
was supported both by Mr. Fox and Mr. Pitt—elr.
Fox (who was then in power) said, " that it was the
fatality of this country that the Government would
never move towards reformation till it was on the
brink of destruction, nor until they feared that every
man was about to take up a musket." That, also, had
been uniformly the case with all the Governments on
the continent, and had beer. one main cause of those
convulsions which were now taking place in almost
every country in Europe.—(Hear.) It was said that
there were no petitions calling for the measure; at
other times when numerous petitions were presented, the
cry was, " Oh, this is agitation." He (Mr. Wood) was
no agitator. lie did not approve of itinerant agitation. ' .
—(Opposition cheers.) He refused, in 1832, to pin till •
raitical Union; and yet, after 014 4 "6 the rolitioot

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